FORE:The printed matter on the third and fourth pages was a list of banking-houses in all the principal cities of the world. Frank observed that every country was included, and there was not a city of any prominence that was not named in the list, and on the same line with the list was the name of a banking-house.I gave no assent, and I believe Oliver guessed my purpose to save him, though his eyes were as venomous as ever. I flirted the rein off his horse's neck and said, savagely "Come! quick! trot! gallop!" The sergeant's young companion of the morning before dashed out of the bushes on his horse with Jim's horse in lead. "I've got him safe, Kendall," I cried, and my captive and I sped by him at a gallop on our way to Ned Ferry's command.
At this point she sat rather more upright in her carriage in order to be able to show how distant and stately was her recognition of Mrs Fyson, who was walking (not driving) in her direction. She gave her quite a little bow without the hint{177} of a smile, for that was just how she felt to Mrs Fyson, and the more clearly Mrs Fyson grasped that fact the better. She could barely see Mrs Fyson, that was the truth of it, and it was not wholly the sunlit mist of Inverbroom magnificence that obscured her. It is true that since the Inverbroom visit (followed up by a Lady Inverbroom lunch at The Cedars, when she had shown her how a pheasant should be served) Mrs Keeling had adopted to Alfred Road generally the attitude of a slowly-ascending balloon, hovering, bathed in sun; over the darkling and low-lying earth below it, and this would very usefully tend to prepare Alfred Road for the greater elevation to which she would suddenly shoot up, as by some release of ballast, when in the spring a certain announcement of honours should be promulgated. But it was not only that Alfred Road was growing dim and shadowy beneath her that prompted this stateliness to Mrs Fyson. That misguided lady (not a true lady) had been going about Bracebridge assuring her friends that Mr Silverdale had been so very attentive to her daughter Julia, that she was daily expecting that Mr Silverdale would seek an interview with Mr Fyson, and Julia a blushing one with her. Now, as Mrs Keeling was daily expecting a similar set of interviews to take place at The Cedars, it was clear that unless Mr Silverdale contemplated bigamist proposals (which would certainly be a very great change{178} from his celibate convictions) Mrs Fyson must be considered a mischievous and jealous tatler. Several days ago Alice had appeared suddenly in her mothers boudoir, murdering sleep like Macbeth, to inform her that she was never going to speak to Julia again, nor wished to hear her name mentioned. She gave no reason, nor did Mrs Keeling need one, for this severance of relations beyond saying that certain remarks of Mrs Fyson were the immediate cause. She then immediately went to bed with influenza, which her mother attributed to rage and shock.It is said that a mans conduct is coloured and inspired by his religion, but it is equally true to say of another and more numerous class that their religion is coloured and inspired by their conduct. {2}Certainly that was the case with Mr Keeling. His life did not so much spring out of his religion, as his religion out of his life; and what he felt every Sunday morning and evening in church was the fruit, the stern honey distilled, so to speak, from the mental and moral integrity which had pervaded him from Monday till Saturday inclusive. All the week the bees collected that store of provender which was transmuted into the frame of mind which was equivalent in him to religion. It did not in the smallest degree enter into his week-day life: his week-day life secreted it, and he found it very well expressed for him in the sermon of Dr Inglis and the fiercer of King Davids psalms. The uprightness, honesty, and industry which he demanded from himself he demanded also from others; but it was not his religion that inspired those excellent qualities. They inspired it."Smith, he's out here to make a new record for himself, at whatever cost!"Ah, that would not be quite right, would it?{279} said Lord Inverbroom, still unperturbed, if Miss Propert has not cared to speak to you of him.
