“I am twenty-six,” he remarked, with an air of reluctant candour.
“And a very good age to stop at!” observed her aunt, with intention.
The novelist looked with compassion on this poor woman who, like Widrington, fought the battle of pose and society, at such frightful odds. The poet presently drifted in her direction and they held a short but epoch-making—as regarded Mrs. Elles—conversation.
“Mrs. Poynder is to me just like an upas-tree,” he confided to Egidia, wringing his hands together. “In her shadow, any poetical idea would wither and die!”
“There is, indeed, a good deal of shadow!” remarked Egidia, alluding to Mrs. Poynder’s truly majestic proportions. “She is a handsome woman in her way!”
“Yes,” he replied wearily, “plenty of presence, and all of it bad, as they said of George III. But seriously, you know, she leads our dear friend a sad life. She contradicts her in everything, and thwarts every instinct of culture. If Mrs. Elles had not plenty of pluck, she would have given in long ago. And her husband!”—he held up his hands.
The poet’s indiscretions bore fruit in a hearty invitation from Egidia to Mrs. Elles, to visit her often at the house where she was staying in Newcastle.
“Brave little woman! I will try and cheer her up a bit!” she thought, as she left the house.
The little party broke up soon after, and Mrs. Elles was left alone with her aunt, who, as the door closed on the last guest, opened her lips and gave, uncalled for, her opinions of the guest.
“That’s a real nice woman!” she said, “that littry friend of yours; I approve of her. It’s a good thing I didn’t take your advice, Fibby, and go trapesing up to Jesmond, this afternoon, to call on Miss Drummond. Why, the girl was here. And such a crowd, too. You said there wouldn’t be anybody here to-day!”