besetting the phlegmatic, like this day's breeze the morning fog; or as
he did with two minutes of the stretch of legs.

Full of the grandeur of that black pit of the benighted London, with its
ocean-voice of the heart at beat along the lighted outer ring, Victor
entered at his old door of the two houses he had knocked into one: a
surprise for Fredi!--and heard that his girl had arrived in the morning.

'And could no more endure her absence from her Mammy O!' The songful
satirical line spouted in him, to be flung at his girl, as he ran
upstairs to the boudoir off the drawing-room.

He peeped in. It was dark. Sensible of presences, he gradually
discerned a thick blot along the couch to the right of the door, and he
drew near. Two were lying folded together; mother and daughter. He bent
over them. His hand was taken and pressed by Fredi's; she spoke; she
said tenderly: 'Father.' Neither of the two made a movement. He heard
the shivering rise of a sob, that fell. The dry sob going to the waste
breath was Nataly's. His girl did not speak again.

He left them. He had no thought until he stood in his dressing-room,
when he said 'Good!' For those two must have been lying folded together
during the greater part of the day: and it meant, that the mother's heart
had opened; the girl knew. Her tone: 'Father,' sweet, was heavy, too,
with the darkness it came out of.

So she knew. Good. He clasped them both in his heart; tempering his
pity of those dear ones with the thought, that they were of the sex
which finds enjoyment in a day of the mutual tear; and envying them;
he strained at a richness appearing in the sobs of their close union.