persons who entertained on that scale; but she had
had dealings with two or three connected, as ap
peared, with such two or three through whom
the stream of hospitality, filtered or diffused, could
thus now and then spread to outlying receptacles.
A good-natured lady in fine, a friend of her mother
and a relative of the lady of the gallery, had offered
to take her to the party in question and had there
fortified her, further, with two or three of those
introductions that, at large parties, lead to other
things that had at any rate, on this occasion, cul
minated for her in conversation with a tall, fair,
slightly unbrushed and rather awkward, but on the
whole not dreary, young man. The young man had
affected her as detached, as it was indeed what
he called himself awfully at sea, as much more dis
tinct from what surrounded them than any one
else appeared to be, and even as probably quite dis
posed to be making his escape when pulled up to
be placed in relation with her. He gave her his
word for it indeed, that same evening, that only
their meeting had prevented his flight, but that now
he saw how sorry he should have been to miss it.
This point they had reached by midnight, and
though in respect to such remarks everything was
in the tone, the tone was by midnight there too.
She had had originally her full apprehension of his
coerced, certainly of his vague, condition full ap
prehensions often being with her immediate; then
she had had her equal consciousness that, within

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p058 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p059w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p060

v?