It is two months of the story since it saw, or rather heard of, Miss Arkroyd and Mr. Challis driving up to this door after midnight in another hansom. All that it said, or implied, at that time amounted to little more than that a not very strait-laced lady and gentleman had been rather free and easy over some theatrical schemes interesting to both, and that the lady's sister, being less free or less easy, had intimated that the conduct of the two might be laced a little more straitly, with advantage. It is over six months of the story since they discussed "The Spendthrift's Legacy" and "Ziz" in the garden at Royd. If Charlotte Eldridge, as an authority, had been asked, "On which of these two occasions, madam, should you suppose the chances were best of this gentleman and lady supplying you with a story made to your hand, akin to the one Robert Browning never went on with?" what would her answer have been?
Our own impression is that at this present date of writing, when Challis, smelling rather strongly of tobacco, is following the little ex-dairymaid up the second flight of stairs to what is known as the young ladies' sitting-room—at this very moment, with the cabman making the most of his inherited Havana, and Judith forming to receive visitors, the position would have been much less likely to supply copy for Mrs. Eldridge than the previous one, but for one thing. Challis's relations with Marianne were, at the moment—say—of the parroquets, intact. What were they now?...
They were something, or Challis's last unspoken speech to himself on the stairs would not have been, "At any rate, it isn't my fault!" It needed the atmosphere of Judith—amused, if irritated, at her absurdity in getting a sprained ankle—to enable him to shake free—though always under protest—of the Hermitage.
"Wasn't it ridiculous of me!... No!—don't sit there; I can't see you.... Wasn't it ridiculous of me to do this—just now of all times in the year?"
"I thought you were a passive agent. I mean I didn't know that you did do anything."
"No more I did! No more than one does. You know what I mean?"
"Couldn't be better expressed! Like when one chokes and thinks one could have helped it, and what a fool one is! But how did it happen?"
"Perfectly simple! I was getting down out of the carriage, and forgot to think about my feet. Fenton Arkroyd was passing, and if he's not taken notice of he's sensitive, because he married a laundress, or something. So I forgot to think about my feet. It might have been so easily avoided—with a little common-sense."
"So might so many things." Challis isn't the least clear how the common-sense would act in the cases he is talking at—the plagues that beset his own path. But what a capital thing to say!—on general grounds, of course, with a little esoteric meaning all to oneself.
Judith, perhaps, thinks it too early in the morning for ethics, as she changes the conversation. "How did you like my little maid?" she says, keeping her eyes closed; which seems absurd after stipulating for visibility on Challis's part. But it all belongs to a certain imperious humour in the grain of her character. And rights of translation are reserved. She can open them if she pleases.