The Figure in the Carpet

nce of some length and a journey of some difficulty, and his undertaking of which was much of a surprise to me. His brother-inlaw had become editor of a

o out-Herod the metropolitan press; he took solemn precautions against priggishness, he exquisitely outraged taste. Nobody ever knew it - that offended principle was all his own. In addition to his expenses he was to be conveniently paid, and I found myself able to help him, for the usual fat book, to a plausible arrangement with the usual fat publisher. I naturally inferred that his obvious desire to make a little

other doesn't like you. But I've always t

do; he couldn't face the triumph with which I might have greeted an explicit admission. He needn't have been afraid, poor dear, for I had by this time lost all need to triumph. In fact I considered I showed magnanimity in not reproaching him with his collapse, for the sense of his having thrown up the game made me feel more than ever how much I at last depended on him. If Corvick had broken down I should never know; no one would be of any use if HE wasn't. It wasn't a bit true I had ceased to care for knowledge; little by little my curiosity not only had begun to ache again, but had become the familiar torment of my days and my nights. There are doubtless people to whom torments of such an order appear hardly more natural than the contortions of disease; but I don't after all know why I should in this connexion so much as mention them. For the few persons, at any rate, abnormal or not,

f which I repaired immediately to Chelsea, where the first

such depths that she must mean t

tion. George has c

a. Immense." That was all - he had saved the cost of the signature. I

in a telegram?

w does

m sure that when you see it you

spirits. "But fancy finding our goddess in the temple of Vishnu! How strange of George to have be

in all their superb intricacy, into the one right combination. The figure in the carpet came out. That's the way he knew it would come and the real reason - you didn't in the least understand, but I suppose I may tell you now - why he went and why I consented to his going. We knew the change would do it - that the difference of thought, of scene, would give the needed to

ereker, y

to see ME. Think what

ed. "Abou

out Vereker - about the

e shall surely have

ck had told me long before that her face was interesting.

an't be got into a letter he hasn't hold of THE thing. Vereker's own

rge an hour ago - two

et of me to ask

t last brought them

I'll make it sure - I'