d in current hotel practice. Countless possibilities,
making doctors perfunctory, Mark felt, swarmed and seethed at their
doors; it showed for an incalculable world, and at last, on Sunday, he
decided to leave his room.

II

Everything, as he passed through the place, went on--all the offices of
life, the whole bustle of the market, and withal, surprisingly, scarce
less that of the nursery and the playground; the whole sprawl in
especial of the great gregarious fireside: it was a complete social
scene in itself, on which types might figure and passions rage and plots
thicken and dramas develop, without reference to any other sphere, or
perhaps even to anything at all outside. The signs of this met him at
every turn as he threaded the labyrinth, passing from one extraordinary
masquerade of expensive objects, one portentous "period" of decoration,
one violent phase of publicity, to another: the heavy heat, the
luxuriance, the extravagance, the quantity, the colour, gave the
impression of some wondrous tropical forest, where vociferous,
bright-eyed, and feathered creatures, of every variety of size and hue,
were half smothered between undergrowths of velvet and tapestry and
ramifications of marble and bronze. The fauna and the flora startled him
alike, and among them his bruised spirit drew in and folded its wings.
But he roamed and rested, exploring and in a manner enjoying the vast
rankness--in the depth of which he suddenly encountered Mrs. Folliott,
whom he had last seen, six months before, in London, and who had spoken
to him then, precisely, of Phil Bloodgood, for several years previous
her confidential American agent and factotum too, as she might say, but
at that time so little in her good books, for the extraordinary things
he seemed to be doing, that she was just hurrying home, she had made no
scruple of mentioning, to take everything out of his hands.

Mark remembered how uneasy she had made him--how that very talk with
her had wound him up to fear, as so acute and intent a little person she
affected him; though he had affirmed with all emphasis and flourish his
own confidence and defended, to iteration, his old friend. This passage
had remained with him for a certain pleasant heat of intimacy, his
partner, of the charming appearance, being what she was; he liked to
think how they had fraternised over their difference and called each
other idiots, or almost, without offence. It was always a link to have