season; and what's more you'll see plenty of perfectly respectable
people stoppin' there. Of course the prices are high. But look at
the luxury! What that wicked Bax used to call 'All the Home
Comforts.' He liked 'is joke. I hear he's settlin' down at home with
his old Dutch. She's bin awful good to him, I must say. _I_ couldn't
stand 'im long. I don't often lose me temper but I did with him,
after he got licked by Paul Dombey, and I threw an inkpot at his
head and ain't seen him for a matter of thirteen or fourteen year.
He sold out all his shares in the Warren Hotels when he came a
cropper."

"Well, mother, I'll have a look round. I'm truly glad you're quit of
the German and Austrian horrors, though you must bear the blame for
having organized them in the first place. I will presently put on
David Williams's clothes and see what I _can_ see of them. But if
you want me to be a daughter to you, you'll take the first and the
readiest opportunity of removing your name from these--_ach_!--these
legacies of the Nineteenth century. You'll wind up the Warren
Hotels' Company, and as to the two houses you've got here and at
Roquebrune, you'll turn them now into decent places where no
indecency is tolerated."

_Mrs. Warren_: "I'll think it over and I don't say as I won't give
in to you. I'm tired of a rackety life and I'm proud of you and ...
and ... (cries) ... ashamed of meself ... ashamed whenever I look at
you. Though I've never bin what I call _bad_. I've helped many a
lame dog over a stile.... That's partly how you came into
existence--almost the only time I've ever been in love--Many years
ago--why, girl, you must be--getting on for thirty-five--let me see
... (muses). Yes, it was in the winter of '73-74. I'd bin at Ostende
with a young barrister from London ... him I told you about once,
who used to write plays, and we came on to Brussels because he had
some business with the Belgian Government. He left me pretty much to
myself just then, though quite open-handed, don't you know.... One
day I was walking through one of the poorer streets where the people
was very Flemish, and I stood looking up at an old doorway--Dunno'
why--S'pose I thought it picturesque--reminded me of Praddy's
drawin's. And an old woman comes up and says in French, 'Madame est
Anglaise?' In those days I couldn't hardly speak a word o' French,
but I said 'Oui.' Then she wants me to come upstairs but I thought
it was some trap. However as far as I