pass her there, and had
dedicated to her, from the moment of their meeting, all the treasures
of his experience. She had judged him in advance--polyglot and
universal, very dear and very deep--as probably but a swindler finished
to the finger-tips; for he was forever carrying one well-kept Italian
hand to his heart and plunging the other straight into her pocket,
which, as she had instantly observed him to recognise, fitted it like a
glove. The remarkable thing was that these elements of their common
consciousness had rapidly gathered into an indestructible link, formed
the ground of a happy relation; being by this time, strangely,
grotesquely, delightfully, what most kept up confidence between them
and what most expressed it.

She had seen quickly enough what was happening--the usual thing again,
yet once again. Eugenio had, in an interview of five minutes,
understood her, had got hold, like all the world, of the idea not so
much of the care with which she must be taken up as of the care with
which she must be let down. All the world understood her, all the world
had got hold; but for nobody yet, she felt, would the idea have been so
close a tie or won from herself so patient a surrender. Gracefully,
respectfully, consummately enough--always with hands in position and
the look, in his thick neat white hair, smooth fat face and black
professional, almost theatrical eyes, as of some famous tenor grown too
old to make love, but with an art still to make money--did he on
occasion convey to her that she was, of all the clients of his glorious
career, the one in whom his interest was most personal and paternal.
The others had come in the way of business, but for her his sentiment
was special. Confidence rested thus on her completely believing that:
there was nothing of which she felt more sure. It passed between them
every time they conversed; he was abysmal, but this intimacy lived on
the surface. He had taken his place already for her among those who
were to see her through, and meditation ranked him, in the constant
perspective, for the final function, side by side with poor Susie--whom
she was now pitying more than ever for having to be herself so sorry
and to say so little about it. Eugenio had the general tact of a
residuary legatee--which was a character that could be definitely worn;
whereas she could see Susie, in the event of her death, in no character
at all, Susie being insistently, exclusively concerned in her m