But the fog was making their eyes water and getting into their throats. By when they reached Tottenham Court Road they were both thoroughly uncomfortable. The 'bus had to be waited for, and in the meantime they talked scrappily, coughily. In the vehicle things were a little better, but here one could not converse with freedom.
'What pestilent conditions of life!' exclaimed Jasper, putting his face rather near to Marian's. 'I wish to goodness we were back in those quiet fields--you remember?--with the September sun warm about us. Shall you go to Finden again before long?'
'I really don't know.'
'I'm sorry to say my mother is far from well. In any case I must go at Christmas, but I'm afraid it won't be a cheerful visit.'
Arrived in Hampstead Road he offered his hand for good-bye.
'I wanted to talk about all sorts of things. But perhaps I shall find you again some day.'
He jumped out, and waved his hat in the lurid fog.
Shortly before the end of December appeared the first number of The Current. Yule had once or twice referred to the forthcoming magazine with acrid contempt, and of course he did not purchase a copy.
'So young Milvain has joined Fadge's hopeful standard,' he remarked, a day or two later, at breakfast. 'They say his paper is remarkably clever; I could wish it had appeared anywhere else.
Evil communications, &c.'
'But I shouldn't think there's any personal connection,' said Marian.
'Very likely not. But Milvain has been invited to contribute, you see.
'Do you think he ought to have refused?'
'Oh no. It's nothing to me; nothing whatever.'
Mrs Yule glanced at her daughter, but Marian seemed unconcerned.
The subject was dismissed. In introducing it Yule had had his purpose; there had always been an unnatural avoidance of Milvain's name in conversation, and he wished to have an end of this. Hitherto he had felt a troublesome uncertainty regarding his position in the matter. From what his wife had told him it seemed pretty certain that Marian was disappointed by the abrupt closing of her brief acquaintance with the young man, and Yule's affection for his daughter caused him to feel uneasy in the thought that perhaps he had deprived her of a chance of happiness. His conscience readily took hold of an excuse for justifying the course he had followed. Milvain had gone over to the enemy. Whether or not the young man understood how relentless the hostility was between Yule and Fadge mattered little; the probability was that he knew all about it. In any case intimate relations with him could not have survived this alliance with Fadge, so that, after all, there had been wisdom in letting the acquaintance lapse. To be sure, nothing could have come of it.
Milvain was the kind of man who weighed opportunities; every step he took would be regulated by considerations of advantage; at all events that was the impression his character had made upon Yule.
Any hopes that Marian might have been induced to form would assuredly have ended in disappointment. It was kindness to interpose before things had gone so far.
Henceforth, if Milvain's name was unavoidable, it should be mentioned just like that of any other literary man. It seemed very unlikely indeed that Marian would continue to think of him with any special and personal interest. The fact of her having got into correspondence with his sisters was unfortunate, but this kind of thing rarely went on for very long.
Yule spoke of the matter with his wife that evening.
'By-the-bye, has Marian heard from those girls at Finden lately?'
'She had a letter one afternoon last week.'
'Do you see these letters?'
'No; she told me what was in them at first, but now she doesn't.'
'She hasn't spoken to you again of Milvain?'
'Not a word.'
'Well, I understood what I was about,' Yule remarked, with the confident air of one who doesn't wish to remember that he had ever felt doubtful. 'There was no good in having the fellow here.
He has got in with a set that I don't at all care for. If she ever says anything--you understand--you can just let me know.'
Marian had already procured a copy of The Current, and read it privately. Of the cleverness of Milvain's contribution there could be no two opinions; it drew the attention of the public, and all notices of the new magazine made special reference to this article. With keen interest Marian sought after comments of the press; when it was possible she cut them out and put them carefully away.
January passed, and February. She saw nothing of Jasper. A letter from Dora in the first week of March made announcement that the 'Child's History of the English Parliament' would be published very shortly; it told her, too, that Mrs Milvain had been very ill indeed, but that she seemed to recover a little strength as the weather improved. Of Jasper there was no mention.
A week later came the news that Mrs Milvain had suddenly died.
This letter was received at breakfast-time. The envelope was an ordinary one, and so little did Marian anticipate the nature of its contents that at the first sight of the words she uttered an exclamation of pain. Her father, who had turned from the table to the fireside with his newspaper, looked round and asked what was the matter.
'Mrs Milvain died the day before yesterday.'
'Indeed!'
He averted his face again and seemed disposed to say no more. But in a few moments he inquired:
'What are her daughters likely to do?'
'I have no idea.'
'Do you know anything of their circumstances?'
'I believe they will have to depend upon themselves.'
Nothing more was said. Afterwards Mrs Yule made a few sympathetic inquiries, but Marian was very brief in her replies.
Ten days after that, on a Sunday afternoon when Marian and her mother were alone in the sitting-room, they heard the knock of a visitor at the front door. Yule was out, and there was no likelihood of the visitor's wishing to see anyone but him. They listened; the servant went to the door, and, after a murmur of voices, came to speak to her mistress.