She came back to these things after they had shaken
down in the inn-parlour and knew, as it were, what was to become of
them; it was inevitable that loud ejaculation over the prodigy of
their convergence should at last wear itself out. Then it was that
his impression took fuller form--the impression, destined only to
deepen, to complete itself, that they had something to put a face
upon, to carry off and make the best of, and that it was she who,
admirably on the whole, was doing this. It was familiar to him of
course that they had something to put a face upon; their
friendship, their connexion, took any amount of explaining--that
would have been made familiar by his twenty minutes with Mrs. Pocock
if it hadn't already been so. Yet his theory, as we know, had
bountifully been that the facts were specifically none of his
business, and were, over and above, so far as one had to do with
them, intrinsically beautiful; and this might have prepared him for
anything, as well as rendered him proof against mystification.
When he reached home that night, however, he knew he had been, at
bottom, neither prepared nor proof; and since we have spoken of
what he was, after his return, to recall and interpret, it may as
well immediately be said that his real experience of these few
hours put on, in that belated vision--for he scarce went to bed
till morning--the aspect that is most to our purpose.
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