y imagination or chivalry will
rejoice that he accepted the evil conditions. He had always had the
courage to tell the truth; and now it was demanded of him to have the
greater courage to tell a lie, and he told it with perfect
cheerfulness and lucidity. In thus disappearing surreptitiously with
an invalid woman he was doing something against which there were
undoubtedly a hundred things to be said, only it happened that the
most cogent and important thing of all was to be said for it.

It is very amusing, and very significant in the matter of Browning's
character, to read the accounts which he writes to Elizabeth Barrett
of his attitude towards the approaching _coup de theatre_. In one
place he says, suggestively enough, that he does not in the least
trouble about the disapproval of her father; the man whom he fears as
a frustrating influence is Kenyon. Mr. Barrett could only walk into
the room and fly into a passion; and this Browning could have received
with perfect equanimity. "But," he says, "if Kenyon knows of the
matter, I shall have the kindest and friendliest of explanations (with
his arm on my shoulder) of how I am ruining your social position,
destroying your health, etc., etc." This touch is very suggestive of
the power of the old worldling, who could manoeuvre with young people
as well as Major Pendennis. Kenyon had indeed long been perfectly
aware of the way in which things were going; and the method he adopted
in order to comment on it is rather entertaining. In a conversation
with Elizabeth Barrett, he asked carelessly whether there was anything
between her sister and a certain Captain Cooke. On receiving a
surprised reply in the negative, he remarked apologetically that he
had been misled into the idea by the gentleman calling so often at the
house. Elizabeth Barrett knew perfectly well what he meant; but the
logical allusiveness of the attack reminds one of a fragment of some
Meredithian comedy.

The manner in which Browning bore himself in this acute and
necessarily dubious position is, perhaps, more thoroughly to his
credit than anything else in his career. He never came out so well in
all his long years of sincerity and publicity as he does in this one
act of deception. Having made up his mind to that act, he is not
ashamed to name it; neither, on the other hand, does he rant about it,
and talk about Philistine prejudices and higher laws and brides in the
sight of God, after the manner of the cock