第45章
Her young friend stood there,still in some rigour,but taken much by surprise even if not yet fully moved to pity."I don't put anything in any 'way,'and I'm very glad you're suited.Only,you know,you did put to me so splendidly what,even for me,if I had listened to you,it might lead to."Mrs.Jordan kept up a mild thin weak wail;then,drying her eyes,as feebly considered this reminder."It has led to my not starving!"she faintly gasped.
Our young lady,at this,dropped into the place beside her,and now,in a rush,the small silly misery was clear.She took her hand as a sign of pitying it,then,after another instant,confirmed this expression with a consoling kiss.They sat there together;they looked out,hand in hand,into the damp dusky shabby little room and into the future,of no such very different suggestion,at last accepted by each.There was no definite utterance,on either side,of Mr.Drake's position in the great world,but the temporary collapse of his prospective bride threw all further necessary light;and what our heroine saw and felt for in the whole business was the vivid reflexion of her own dreams and delusions and her own return to reality.Reality,for the poor things they both were,could only be ugliness and obscurity,could never be the escape,the rise.She pressed her friend--she had tact enough for that--with no other personal question,brought on no need of further revelations,only just continued to hold and comfort her and to acknowledge by stiff little forbearances the common element in their fate.She felt indeed magnanimous in such matters;since if it was very well,for condolence or reassurance,to suppress just then invidious shrinkings,she yet by no means saw herself sitting down,as she might say,to the same table with Mr.
Drake.There would luckily,to all appearance,be little question of tables;and the circumstance that,on their peculiar lines,her friend's interests would still attach themselves to Mayfair flung over Chalk Farm the first radiance it had shown.Where was one's pride and one's passion when the real way to judge of one's luck was by making not the wrong but the right comparison?Before she had again gathered herself to go she felt very small and cautious and thankful."We shall have our own house,"she said,"and you must come very soon and let me show it you.""WE shall have our own too,"Mrs.Jordan replied;"for,don't you know?he makes it a condition that he sleeps out?""A condition?"--the girl felt out of it.
"For any new position.It was on that he parted with Lord Rye.
His lordship can't meet it.So Mr.Drake has given him up.""And all for you?"--our young woman put it as cheerfully as possible.
"For me and Lady Bradeen.Her ladyship's too glad to get him at any price.Lord Rye,out of interest in us,has in fact quite MADEher take him.So,as I tell you,he will have his own establishment."Mrs.Jordan,in the elation of it,had begun to revive;but there was nevertheless between them rather a conscious pause--a pause in which neither visitor nor hostess brought out a hope or an invitation.It expressed in the last resort that,in spite of submission and sympathy,they could now after all only look at each other across the social gulf.They remained together as if it would be indeed their last chance,still sitting,though awkwardly,quite close,and feeling also--and this most unmistakeably--that there was one thing more to go into.By the time it came to the surface,moreover,our young friend had recognised the whole of the main truth,from which she even drew again a slight irritation.It was not the main truth perhaps that most signified;but after her momentary effort,her embarrassment and her tears Mrs.Jordan had begun to sound afresh--and even without speaking--the note of a social connexion.She hadn't really let go of it that she was marrying into society.Well,it was a harmless compensation,and it was all the prospective bride of Mr.Mudge had to leave with her.