The Coxon Fund

ng, an early Victorian landau, hired, near at hand, imaginatively, from a broken-down jobmaster whose wife was in consumption — a vehicle that made people turn round all the more when her pensione

or with her acquaintance. However, if he was in the pillory for twenty minutes in the Regent’s Park — I mean at Lady Coxon’s door while his companion paid her call — it wasn’t to the further humiliation of any one concerned that she presently came out for him in person, not even to show either of them what a fool she was that she drew him in to be introduced to the bright young American. Her account of the introduction I h

did you f

o str

dn’t li

l till I see

nt to d

pause. “

looking at us. She turned back toward the knot of the others, an

ought she colo

er!” I laughed; “on

lville — she might find herself flattening her nose against the clear hard pane of an eternal question — that of the relative, that of the opposed, importances of virtue and brains. She replied that this was surely a subject on which one took everything for granted; whereupon I admitted that I had perhaps expressed myself ill. What I referred to was what I had referred to the night we met

lp do yo

member for

n returned: “Why my ide

had undergone a temporary eclipse. News of the catastrophe first came to me from Mrs. Saltram, and it was afterwards confirmed at Wimbledon: poor Miss Anvoy was in trouble — great disasters in America had suddenly summon

ener has per

have? The Hou

ese American fathers —! What was a man to do? Mr. Saltram, according to Mrs. Mulville, was of opinion that a man was never to suffer his relation to money to become a spiritual relation — he was to keep it exclusively material. “Moi pas comprendre!” I commented on this; in rejoinder to which Adelaide, with her beautiful sympathy, explained that she supposed he simply

tening. “He said he recognised in her

eaking of the ef

unt the stream. “It was e

de me laugh. “Do you mea

ince you

here on

ltered. “It was to me

dn’t see the scene. “Do

he met my eyes, though I could see it

out of h

he dear practical soul thought my agitation, for I confess I was agitated, referred to the employment of the money. Her disclosure made me for a moment muse violently, and I dare say that during that moment I wondered if anything else in the

se Americans!” I said. “With her father in the v

t — or whatever he has done — on purpose. Very likely they won’t be abl

altram was

hing. He surpr

oment I added: “Had he peradventure caught

hed. “How can you be so cruel when

s that act on my nerves. I’m sure he hadn’t caug

rred. “And perhaps even of h

And what was

he poetry, the sublimity of it.” It was impossible wholly to restrain one’s mirth at this, and some rude ripple

ration? In

ays been right on t

tion, dear lady, ha

it? — and that he has never, but NEVER, had a

“Didn’t Miss Anvoy express her satisfaction in any less diffident

These words somehow brushed up a picture of Saltram’s big shawled back as he hoisted

er. “Did he we

She hadn’t

an yo

y clean. Miss Anvoy used such a remarkable ex

p my ears.

ging and shining and flashing there.

again. “Mo