Europe." Such knowledge came to him by a kind of intuition, by the
voices of the air, by indefinable and unteachable processes. But he held
his peace on purpose; he didn't want any outsiders; he thought their
little party just right. Mr. Dosson's place in the scheme of Providence
was to "go" with Delia while he himself "went" with Francie, and nothing
would have induced George Flack to disfigure that equation. The young
man was professionally so occupied with other people's affairs that it
should doubtless be mentioned to his praise that he still managed to
have affairs--or at least an affair--of his own. That affair was Francie
Dosson, and he was pleased to perceive how little SHE cared what had
become of Mr. and Mrs. Rosenheim and Master Samuel and Miss Cora. He
counted all the things she didn't care about--her soft inadvertent eyes
helped him to do that; and they footed up so, as he would have said,
that they gave him the rich sense of a free field. If she had so few
interests there was the greater possibility that a young man of bold
conceptions and cheerful manners might become one. She had usually the
air of waiting for something, with a pretty listlessness or an amused
resignation, while tender shy indefinite little fancies hummed in her
brain. Thus she would perhaps recognise in him the reward of patience.
George Flack was aware that he exposed his friends to considerable
fatigue: he brought them back pale and taciturn from suburban excursions
and from wanderings often rather aimless and casual among the boulevards
and avenues of the town. He regarded them at such times with complacency
however, for these were hours of diminished resistance: he had an idea
that he should be able eventually to circumvent Delia if he only could
catch her some day sufficiently, that is physically, prostrate. He liked
to make them all feel helpless and dependent, and this was not difficult
with people who were so modest and artless, so unconscious of the
boundless power of wealth. Sentiment, in our young man, was not a
scruple nor a source of weakness; but he thought it really touching, the