their cigars and taken up their bedroom candlesticks; but before they all
passed out Lord Watermouth invited the pair of guests who had been so
absorbed together to "have" something. It happened that they both
declined; upon which General Fancourt said: "Is that the hygiene? You
don't water the flowers?"

"Oh I should drown them!" St. George replied; but, leaving the room still
at his young friend's side, he added whimsically, for the latter's
benefit, in a lower tone: "My wife doesn't let me."

"Well I'm glad I'm not one of you fellows!" the General richly concluded.

The nearness of Summersoft to London had this consequence, chilling to a
person who had had a vision of sociability in a railway-carriage, that
most of the company, after breakfast, drove back to town, entering their
own vehicles, which had come out to fetch them, while their servants
returned by train with their luggage. Three or four young men, among
whom was Paul Overt, also availed themselves of the common convenience;
but they stood in the portico of the house and saw the others roll away.
Miss Fancourt got into a victoria with her father after she had shaken
hands with our hero and said, smiling in the frankest way in the world,
"I _must_ see you more. Mrs. St. George is so nice: she has promised to
ask us both to dinner together." This lady and her husband took their
places in a perfectly-appointed brougham--she required a closed
carriage--and as our young man waved his hat to them in response to their
nods and flourishes he reflected that, taken together, they were an
honourable image of success, of the material rewards and the social
credit of literature. Such things were not the full measure, but he
nevertheless felt a little proud for literature.