which he was constantly wiring for "rooms": all this she granted him,
forgave him; in fact, in the long run, literally blessed and thanked him
for. If he had to lead his life, that precisely fostered his leading it
so much by telegraph: therefore the benediction was to come in when he
could. That was all she asked--that he shouldn't wholly deprive her.

Sometimes she almost felt that he couldn't have deprived her even had he
been minded, by reason of the web of revelation that was woven between
them. She quite thrilled herself with thinking what, with such a lot of
material, a bad girl would do. It would be a scene better than many in
her ha'penny novels, this going to him in the dusk of evening at Park
Chambers and letting him at last have it. "I know too much about a
certain person now not to put it to you--excuse my being so lurid--that
it's quite worth your while to buy me off. Come, therefore; buy me!"
There was a point indeed at which such flights had to drop again--the
point of an unreadiness to name, when it came to that, the purchasing
medium. It wouldn't certainly be anything so gross as money, and the
matter accordingly remained rather vague, all the more that _she_ was not
a bad girl. It wasn't for any such reason as might have aggravated a
mere minx that she often hoped he would again bring Cissy. The
difficulty of this, however, was constantly present to her, for the kind
of communion to which Cocker's so richly ministered rested on the fact
that Cissy and he were so often in different places. She knew by this
time all the places--Suchbury, Monkhouse, Whiteroy, Finches--and even how
the parties on these occasions were composed; but her subtlety found ways
to make her knowledge fairly protect and promote their keeping, as she
had heard Mrs. Jordan say, in touch. So, when he actually sometimes
smiled as if he really felt the awkwardness of giving her again one of
the same old addresses, all her being went out in the desire--which her
face must have expressed--that he should recognise her forbearance to