"No; I am quite well. Shall you have many at the supper?"
"No; not very many. A dozen or so. Just the old fellows who knew me, and whom I liked when--I mean whom I have always liked." He had been near alluding to the great change, but had stopped in time. Then he gave her the names of those he expected. She knew of them all, and brightened up a little as he went on with his descriptive catalogue of his guests. At length he came to little Porson, the novelist and journalist.
"Little Porson, too, will be there. You know little Porson? Well, no, but I have told you of him. He's a dapper, mild, conceited fellow, with the best heart and the most infernally restless tongue in the world. He has just got out a new novel. It's called 'A Maid of Chelsea,' and is doing very well, I believe. By-the-way, I have had a most polite letter from Blantyre and Ferguson, the firm that published my book. They say that of late the demand for the novel has been so great as to warrant them in getting out, in three volumes, a new edition four times as large as the first. Think of that!"
She looked up brightly, and cried: "Oh, Charlie, that is good news!"
"I should have thought it great news a month ago, but it does not make much difference now."
"Ah, I forgot," she said sadly. All the light left her face suddenly, and during the rest of the time they were together that day she never called him Charlie again.
When he left she went, up to her own room, feeling wretched, and cold, and broken-hearted. She locked herself in once more, and drew down the blind.
Ah, what a change! What an awful change! Not in him; there was no change in his kind nature. And yet there was a change. Of old he thought and spoke of two only things; he seemed to have had only two things to think of--his work and herself.
Now he had to think of the House of Lords, for he was a great lord; and of foreign cities, for he was rich and must travel; and of business of vast importance, for he owned wide tracts of land, with castles, and villages, and towns. By the side of all these things how wretchedly insignificant she seemed! In their presence she was dwarfed into nothing. She could not recognise herself, and surely he could not recognise her. She would be invisible to him, unless, indeed, she happened to be in his way.
Yes, in so far as she might be anything to him, she should be in his way. He was a strong man, who knew the world and was very clever. He would take his place among all these great things naturally. He would be invited to assist in the government of the country, and in course of time add the dignities and honours his intellect would bring him to those he had just inherited. By the side of a man in such a career was not the place for such as she.