" All the same, I had scored.
Berthe had come forth at the sound of our rising. I explained to her
that Mr. Soames had been called away, and that both he and I would be
dining here. It was not until I was out in the open air that I began to feel
giddy. I have but the haziest recollection of what I did, where I
wandered, in the glaring sunshine of that endless afternoon. I remember
the sound of carpenters' hammers all along Piccadilly and the bare
chaotic look of the half-erected "stands." Was it in the Green Park or in
Kensington Gardens or WHERE was it that I sat on a chair beneath
a tree, trying to read an evening paper? There was a phrase in the leading
article that went on repeating itself in my fagged mind: "Little is hidden
from this August Lady full of the garnered wisdom of sixty years of
Sovereignty." I remember wildly conceiving a letter (to reach Windsor
by an express messenger told to await answer): "Madam: Well knowing
that your Majesty is full of the garnered wisdom of sixty years of
Sovereignty, I venture to ask your advice in the following delicate matter.
Mr. Enoch Soames, whose poems you may or may not know--" Was
there NO way of helping him, saving him? A bargain was a
bargain, and I was the last man to aid or abet any one in wriggling out of
a reasonable obligation. I wouldn't have lifted a little finger to save
Faust. But poor Soames! Doomed to pay without respite
an eternal price for nothing but a fruitless search and a bitter
disillusioning.
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