None whatever?
None whatever.
Trust me then to try to be good at any price! I laughed as I went with him to the door. I declare I will be, if I have to be horrible!
III
If that first night was one of the liveliest, or at any rate was the freshest, of my exaltations, there was another, four years later, that was one of my great discomposures. Repetition, I well knew by this time, was the secret of Saltrams power to alienate, and of course one would never have seen him at his finest if one hadnt seen him in his remorses. They set in mainly at this season and were magnificent, elemental, orchestral. I was quite aware that one of these atmospheric disturbances was now due; but none the less, in our arduous attempt to set him on his feet as a lecturer, it was impossible not to feel that two failures were a large order, as we said, for a short course of five. This was the second time, and it was past nine oclock; the audience, a muster unprecedented and really encouraging, had fortunately the attitude of blandness that might have been looked for in persons whom the promise of (if Im not mistaken) An Analysis of Primary Ideas had drawn to the neighbourhood of Upper Baker Street. There was in those days in that region a petty lecture-hall to be secured on terms as moderate as the funds left at our disposal by the irrepressible question of the maintenance of five small SaltramsI include the motherand one large one. By the time the Saltrams, of different sizes, were all maintained we had pretty well poured out the oil that might have lubricated the machinery for enabling the most original of men to appear to maintain them.
It was I, the other time, who had been forced into the breach, standing up there for an odious lamplit moment to explain to half a dozen thin benches, where earnest brows were virtuously void of anything so cynical as a suspicion, that we couldnt so much as put a finger on Mr. Saltram. There was nothing to plead but that our scouts had been out from the early hours and that we were afraid that on one of his walks abroadhe took one, for meditation, whenever he was to address such a companysome accident had disabled or delayed him. The meditative walks were a fiction, for he never, that any one could discover, prepared anything but a magnificent prospectus; hence his circulars and programmes, of which I possess an almost complete collection, are the solemn ghosts of generations never born. I put the case, as it seemed to me, at the best; but I admit I had been angry, and Kent Mulville was shocked at my want of public optimism. This time therefore I left the excuses to his more practised patience, only relieving myself in response to a direct appeal from a young lady next whom, in the hall, I found myself sitting. My position was an accident, but if it had been calculated the reason would scarce have eluded an observer of the fact that no one else in the room had an approach to an appearance. Our philosophers tail was deplorably limp. This visitor was the only person who looked at her ease, who had come a little in the spirit of adventure. She seemed to carry amusement in her handsome young head, and her presence spoke, a little mystifyingly, of a sudden extension of Saltrams sphere of influence. He was doing better than we hoped, and he had chosen such an occasion, of all occasions, to succumb to heaven knew which of his fond infirmities. The young lady produced an impression of auburn hair and black velvet, and had on her other hand a companion of obscurer type, presumably a waiting-maid. She herself might perhaps have been a foreign countess, and before she addressed me I had beguiled our sorry interval by finding in her a vague recall of the opening of some novel of Madame Sand. It didnt make her more fathomable to pass in a few minutes from this to the certitude that she was American; it simply engendered depressing reflexions as to the possible check to contributions from Boston. She asked me if, as a person apparently more initiated, I would recommend further waiting, and I answered that if she considered I was on my honour I would privately deprecate it. Perhaps she didnt; at any rate our talk took a turn that prolonged it till she became aware we were left almost alone. I presently ascertained she knew Mrs. Saltram, and this explained in a manner the miracle. The brotherhood of the friends of the husband was as nothing to the brotherhood, or perhaps I should say the sisterhood, of the friends of the wife. Like the Kent Mulvilles I belonged to both fraternities, and even better than they I think I had sounded the abyss of Mrs. Saltrams wrongs. She bored me to extinction, and I knew but too well how she had bored her husband; but there were those who stood by her, the most efficient of whom were indeed the handful of poor Saltrams backers. They did her liberal justice, whereas her mere patrons and partisans had nothing but hatred for our philosopher. Im bound to say it was we, howeverwe of both camps, as it werewho had always done most for her.
I thought my young lady looked richI scarcely knew why; and I hoped she had put her hand in her pocket. I soon made her out, however, not at all a fine fanaticshe was but a generous, irresponsible enquirer. She had come to England to see her aunt, and it was at her aunts she had met the dreary lady we had all so much on our mind. I saw shed help to pass the time when she observed that it was a pity this lady wasnt intrinsically more interesting. That was refreshing, for it was an article of faith in Mrs. Saltrams circleat least among those who scorned to know her horrid husbandthat she was attractive on her merits. She was in truth a most ordinary person, as Saltram himself would have been if he hadnt been a prodigy. The question of vulgarity had no application to him, but it was a measure his wife kept challenging you to apply. I hasten to add that the consequences of your doing so were no sufficient reason for his having left her to starve. He doesnt seem to have much force of character, said my young lady; at which I laughed out so loud that my departing friends looked back at me over their shoulders as if I were making a joke of their discomfiture. My joke probably cost Saltram a subscription or two, but it helped me on with my interlocutress. She says he drinks like a fish, she sociably continued, and yet she allows that his minds wonderfully clear. It was amusing to converse with a pretty girl who could talk of the clearness of Saltrams mind. I expected next to hear she had been assured he was awfully clever. I tried to tell herI had it almost on my consciencewhat was the proper way to regard him; an effort attended perhaps more than ever on this occasion with the usual effect of my feeling that I wasnt after all very sure of it. She had come to-night out of high curiosityshe had wanted to learn this proper way for herself. She had read some of his papers and hadnt understood them; but it was at home, at her aunts, that her curiosity had been kindledkindled mainly by his wifes remarkable stories of his want of virtue. I suppose they ought to have kept me away, my companion dropped, and I suppose theyd have done so if I hadnt somehow got an idea that hes fascinating. In fact Mrs. Saltram herself says he is.
So you came to see where the fascination resides? Well, youve seen!
My young lady raised fine eyebrows. Do you mean in his bad faith?
In the extraordinary effects of it; his possession, that is, of some quality or other that condemns us in advance to forgive him the humiliation, as I may call it, to which he has subjected us.