left London in July she had told him that, between Cowes and
Scotland, she and Hermy were provided for till the middle of
October: after that, as she put it, they would have to look about.
Why, then, when she had in her hand the opportunity of living for
three months at the expense of the British aristocracy, did she rush
off to Paris at heaven knew whose expense in the beginning of
September? She was not a woman to act incoherently; if she made
mistakes they were not of that kind. Garnett felt sure she would
never willingly relax her hold on her distinguished friends--was it
possible that it was they who had somewhat violently let go of her?

As Garnett reviewed the situation he began to see that this
possibility had for some time been latent in it. He had felt that
something might happen at any moment--and was not this the something
he had obscurely foreseen? Mrs. Newell really moved too fast: her
position was as perilous as that of an invading army without a base
of supplies. She used up everything too quickly--friends, credit,
influence, forbearance. It was so easy for her to acquire all
these--what a pity she had never learned to keep them! He himself,
for instance--the most insignificant of her acquisitions--was
beginning to feel like a squeezed sponge at the mere thought of her;
and it was this sense of exhaustion, of the inability to provide
more, either materially or morally, which had provoked his
exclamation on opening her note. From the first days of their
acquaintance her prodigality had amazed him, but he had believed it
to be surpassed by the infinity of her resources. If she exhausted
old supplies she always found new ones to replace them. When one set
of people began to find her impossible, another was always beginning
to find her indispensable. Yes--but there were limits--there were
only so many sets of people, at least in her social classification,