Tant, very virtuously, and with his head nodding in a sideways fashion at his friend. "You pervert them, you mean," exclaimed Gilbert. "Besides, if you're so deeply interested in Miss Enid Ewart-Crane, this will be a splendid opportunity for you to set yourself right with her, to my everlasting damage." "You know perfectly well that she'd never look at me," said Mr. Tant. "She's a glorious creature—a wonderful woman, and in your own sphere of life; I can't see why you neglect her as you do." [13] [13] "I have been told ever since I was a mere boy that at some future date I should marry Enid—if I were good. It's just like a small boy being offered anything—if he is good; he begins to loathe the idea of it at once. Enid is all that you say—and I like her very much; but if I've got to marry her I'll choose my own time for it. At present I'm in Fairyland—and I mean to stop there." "What do you mean by Fairyland?" asked Mr. Tant testily. "You wouldn't understand if I told you," replied Gilbert. Then he added quickly, and with contrition—"There—there—my dear fellow, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings; you're not really a bad sort, if you'd come out of your shell sometimes, and let the real wind of the real earth ruffle your hair a bit. I must talk to someone—and I'm not sorry to find you here to-day; only you mustn't tell anyone outside." "Of course not," almost snapped Mr. Tant. "I came here in the first place, Tant," began Gilbert, seating himself again on the table, "with the expectation of finding that I had got among commonplace people—and not nice commonplace people at that. Then I saw this girl—this mere child, that even a hard world and a hard and sordid life had not changed, struggling on day by day to make a living—not for herself, or for any selfish reason—but to keep those who should by rights have kept her. And I saw her, above all things, doing something else, and doing it rather splendidly." [14] [14] "I don't understand you. What else was she doing?" asked Jordan Tant. It was growing dark in Arcadia Street, and the lamps were being lighted. With the dying of the day a sort of hush had fallen upon the place; the sounds outside were subdued, as though even Arcadia
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