to be there. I was young enough for a flutter at meeting a man of
his renown, and innocent enough to believe the occasion would
demand the display of an acquaintance with his "last."

Corvick, who had promised a review of it, had not even had time to
read it; he had gone to pieces in consequence of news requiring--as
on precipitate reflexion he judged--that he should catch the night-
mail to Paris. He had had a telegram from Gwendolen Erme in answer
to his letter offering to fly to her aid. I knew already about
Gwendolen Erme; I had never seen her, but I had my ideas, which
were mainly to the effect that Corvick would marry her if her
mother would only die. That lady seemed now in a fair way to
oblige him; after some dreadful mistake about a climate or a "cure"
she had suddenly collapsed on the return from abroad. Her
daughter, unsupported and alarmed, desiring to make a rush for home
but hesitating at the risk, had accepted our friend's assistance,
and it was my secret belief that at sight of him Mrs. Erme would
pull round. His own belief was scarcely to be called secret; it
discernibly at any rate differed from mine. He had showed me
Gwendolen's photograph with the remark that she wasn't pretty but
was awfully interesting; she had published at the age of nineteen a
novel in three volumes, "Deep Down," about which, in The Middle, he
had been really splendid. He appreciated my present eagerness and
undertook that the periodical in question should do no less; then
at the last, with his hand on the door, he said to me: "Of course
you'll be all right, you know." Seeing I was a trifle vague he
added: "I mean you won't be silly."

"Silly--about Vereker! Why what do I ever find him but awfully
clever?"