Everything was always "on the eve of being righted," but the day of righteousness never dawned. Mademoiselle Garin began to stop "monsieur Kent" in the hall and convey to him with firmness that her mother had very heavy obligations to meet, and Cynthia sat at the dinner-table in constant terror of the old woman coming in and publicly insulting them.
One morning, when the laundress brought back their linen, Humphrey had to feign to be asleep, while Cynthia explained that "monsieur had all the money and was so unwell that she did not like to wake him." The poor creature was sympathetic, and went away telling madame not to disquiet herself—it was doubtless only a passing indisposition. But after she had gone, the girl begged Humphrey to take a loan on her engagement-ring, and after some discussion he complied. Everything is more valuable in Paris than in London until one has occasion to pawn it, and then it is worth much less, especially jewellery. From the mont-de-piété Kent procured about forty per cent, of what a London pawn-broker would have lent him. However, the loan was useful. Though it did not clear them, it afforded temporary relief; and it paid the nurse's wages, which were due the same day. Cynthia said that she had become so "demoralised"—she used a happy term now with a frequency he would have found astonishing if he had recalled how she talked when they first met—that a substantial payment on account "made her feel quite meritorious"; and there was a week in which they went to the theatres again, and walked past the bureau with heads erect.
March had opened mildly, and people were once more beginning to sit outside the cafés; and Mrs. Deane-Pitt was returning to England. Kent had kept his resolution not to enter the yellow drawing-room in the avenue Wagram when it could be avoided—partly, no doubt, because of the anxieties he had had to occupy his mind, but partly also by force of will. When he heard that she was leaving, though, he could do no less—nor did he feel it necessary to do less—than call to bid her "au revoir," and he was conscious, as the servant replied that she was at home, that he would have been disappointed otherwise.
He gown betokened that visitors were expected; teacups demonstrated that visitors had been. She welcomed him languidly, and motioned him to a seat.
"I thought you must have gone to London, or to Paradise," she said. "What have you beer doing with yourself?"
"I've been so fearfully busy," he answered lamely.
"On the paper?"
"Of course."
"I don't hear good reports of the paper," she said. "I hope they aren't true?"
"The paper is as good as it always was," responded Kent—"neither better nor worse. May I ask what you hear?"