very well, but what WILL become of Brooksmith?" Even my private
answer to this question left me still unsatisfied. No doubt Mr.
Offord would provide for him, but WHAT would he provide?--that was
the great point. He couldn't provide society; and society had
become a necessity of Brooksmith's nature. I must add that he
never showed a symptom of what I may call sordid solicitude--
anxiety on his own account. He was rather livid and intensely
grave, as befitted a man before whose eyes the "shade of that which
once was great" was passing away. He had the solemnity of a person
winding up, under depressing circumstances, a long-established and
celebrated business; he was a kind of social executor or
liquidator. But his manner seemed to testify exclusively to the
uncertainty of OUR future. I couldn't in those days have afforded
it--I lived in two rooms in Jermyn Street and didn't "keep a man";
but even if my income had permitted I shouldn't have ventured to
say to Brooksmith (emulating Mr. Offord) "My dear fellow, I'll
take you on." The whole tone of our intercourse was so much more
an implication that it was I who should now want a lift. Indeed
there was a tacit assurance in Brooksmith's whole attitude that he
should have me on his mind.

One of the most assiduous members of our circle had been Lady
Kenyon, and I remember his telling me one day that her ladyship had
in spite of her own infirmities, lately much aggravated, been in
person to inquire. In answer to this I remarked that she would
feel it more than any one. Brooksmith had a pause before saying in
a certain tone--there's no reproducing some of his tones--"I'll go
and see her." I went to see her myself and learned he had waited
on her; but when I said to her, in the form of a joke but with a
core of earnest, that when all was over some of us ought to