Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/184

170 so, she would do it to some purpose. She would have to leap through a hoop, but she would land on her charger's back. The next moment Paul was watching her while she shook her little flags at him. "There's one thing, my dear, that I can give you my word of honour for—the fact that if the influence that congeals, that paralyses you, happens by any chance to be a dream of what may be open to you in any other quarter, the sooner you utterly dismiss that dream the better it will be not only for your happiness, but for your dignity. If you entertain—with no matter how bad a conscience—a vain fancy that you've the smallest real chance of making the smallest real impression on anybody else, all I can say is that you prepare for yourself very nearly as much discomfort as you prepare disgust for your mother." She paused a moment; she felt, before her son's mild gape, like a trapezist in pink tights. "How much susceptibility, I should like to know, has Miss Armiger at her command for your great charms?"

Paul showed her a certain respect; he didn't clap her—that is he didn't smile. He felt something, however, which was indicated, as it always was, by