The Pupil | Page 7

nothing that
didn't show, neglected him because he escaped notice, and then, as he
illustrated this clever policy, discouraged at home his public
appearances. Her position was logical enough--those members of her
family who did show had to be showy.
During this period and several others Pemberton was quite aware of
how he and his comrade might strike people; wandering languidly
through the Jardin des Plantes as if they had nowhere to go, sitting on
the winter days in the galleries of the Louvre, so splendidly ironical to
the homeless, as if for the advantage of the calorifere. They joked about

it sometimes: it was the sort of joke that was perfectly within the boy's
compass. They figured themselves as part of the vast vague
hand-to-mouth multitude of the enormous city and pretended they were
proud of their position in it--it showed them "such a lot of life" and
made them conscious of a democratic brotherhood. If Pemberton
couldn't feel a sympathy in destitution with his small companion--for
after all Morgan's fond parents would never have let him really
suffer--the boy would at least feel it with him, so it came to the same
thing. He used sometimes to wonder what people would think they
were--to fancy they were looked askance at, as if it might be a
suspected case of kidnapping. Morgan wouldn't be taken for a young
patrician with a preceptor--he wasn't smart enough; though he might
pass for his companion's sickly little brother. Now and then he had a
five-franc piece, and except once, when they bought a couple of lovely
neckties, one of which he made Pemberton accept, they laid it out
scientifically in old books. This was sure to be a great day, always
spent on the quays, in a rummage of the dusty boxes that garnish the
parapets. Such occasions helped them to live, for their books ran low
very soon after the beginning of their acquaintance. Pemberton had a
good many in England, but he was obliged to write to a friend and ask
him kindly to get some fellow to give him something for them.
If they had to relinquish that summer the advantage of the bracing
climate the young man couldn't but suspect this failure of the cup when
at their very lips to have been the effect of a rude jostle of his own. This
had represented his first blow-out, as he called it, with his patrons; his
first successful attempt--though there was little other success about
it--to bring them to a consideration of his impossible position. As the
ostensible eve of a costly journey the moment had struck him as
favourable to an earnest protest, the presentation of an ultimatum.
Ridiculous as it sounded, he had never yet been able to compass an
uninterrupted private interview with the elder pair or with either of
them singly. They were always flanked by their elder children, and
poor Pemberton usually had his own little charge at his side. He was
conscious of its being a house in which the surface of one's delicacy got
rather smudged; nevertheless he had preserved the bloom of his scruple
against announcing to Mr. and Mrs. Moreen with publicity that he

shouldn't be able to go on longer without a little money. He was still
simple enough to suppose Ulick and Paula and Amy might not know
that since his arrival he had only had a hundred and forty francs; and he
was magnanimous enough to wish not to compromise their parents in
their eyes. Mr. Moreen now listened to him, as he listened to every one
and to every thing, like a man of the world, and seemed to appeal to
him--though not of course too grossly--to try and be a little more of one
himself. Pemberton recognised in fact the importance of the
character--from the advantage it gave Mr. Moreen. He was not even
confused or embarrassed, whereas the young man in his service was
more so than there was any reason for. Neither was he surprised--at
least any more than a gentleman had to be who freely confessed
himself a little shocked--though not perhaps strictly at Pemberton.
"We must go into this, mustn't we, dear?" he said to his wife. He
assured his young friend that the matter should have his very best
attention; and he melted into space as elusively as if, at the door, he
were taking an inevitable but deprecatory precedence. When, the next
moment, Pemberton found himself alone with Mrs. Moreen it was to
hear her say "I see, I see"--stroking the roundness of her chin and
looking as if she were only hesitating between a dozen easy remedies.
If they didn't make their push Mr. Moreen could at least disappear for
several days. During his absence his wife took up