“I’m all right - all right,” Morgan panted to Pemberton, whom he sat looking up at with a strange smile, his hands resting on either side of the sofa.
“Now do you pretend I’ve been dishonest, that I’ve deceived?” Mrs. Moreen flashed at Pemberton as she got up.
“It isn’t HE says it, it’s I!” the boy returned, apparently easier, but sinking back against the wall; while his restored friend, who had sat down beside him, took his hand and bent over him.
“Darling child, one does what one can; there are so many things to consider,” urged Mrs. Moreen. “It’s his PLACE - his only place. You see YOU think it is now.”
“Take me away - take me away,” Morgan went on, smiling to Pemberton with his white face.
“Where shall I take you, and how - oh HOW, my boy?” the young man stammered, thinking of the rude way in which his friends in London held that, for his convenience, with no assurance of prompt return, he had thrown them over; of the just resentment with which they would already have called in a successor, and of the scant help to finding fresh employment that resided for him in the grossness of his having failed to pass his pupil.
“Oh we’ll settle that. You used to talk about it,” said Morgan. “If we can only go all the rest’s a detail.”
“Talk about it as much as you like, but don’t think you can attempt it. Mr. Moreen would never consent - it would be so VERY hand-to- mouth,” Pemberton’s hostess beautifully explained to him. Then to Morgan she made it clearer: “It would destroy our peace, it would break our hearts. Now that he’s back it will be all the same again. You’ll have your life, your work and your freedom, and we’ll all be happy as we used to be. You’ll bloom and grow perfectly well, and we won’t have any more silly experiments, will we? They’re too absurd. It’s Mr. Pemberton’s place - every one in his place. You in yours, your papa in his, me in mine - n’est-ce pas, cheri? We’ll all forget how foolish we’ve been and have lovely times.”
She continued to talk and to surge vaguely about the little draped stuffy salon while Pemberton sat with the boy, whose colour gradually came back; and she mixed up her reasons, hinting that there were going to be changes, that the other children might scatter (who knew? - Paula had her ideas) and that then it might be fancied how much the poor old parent-birds would want the little nestling. Morgan looked at Pemberton, who wouldn’t let him move; and Pemberton knew exactly how he felt at hearing himself called a little nestling. He admitted that he had had one or two bad days, but he protested afresh against the wrong of his mother’s having made them the ground of an appeal to poor Pemberton. Poor Pemberton could laugh now, apart from the comicality of Mrs. Moreen’s mustering so much philosophy for her defence - she seemed to shake it out of her agitated petticoats, which knocked over the light gilt chairs - so little did their young companion, MARKED, unmistakeably marked at the best, strike him as qualified to repudiate any advantage.
He himself was in for it at any rate. He should have Morgan on his hands again indefinitely; though indeed he saw the lad had a private theory to produce which would be intended to smooth this down. He was obliged to him for it in advance; but the suggested amendment didn’t keep his heart rather from sinking, any more than it prevented him from accepting the prospect on the spot, with some confidence moreover that he should do so even better if he could have a little supper. Mrs. Moreen threw out more hints about the changes that were to be looked for, but she was such a mixture of smiles and shudders - she confessed she was very nervous - that he couldn’t tell if she were in high feather or only in hysterics. If the family was really at last going to pieces why shouldn’t she recognise the necessity of pitching Morgan into some sort of lifeboat? This presumption was fostered by the fact that they were established in luxurious quarters in the capital of pleasure; that was exactly where they naturally WOULD be established in view of going to pieces. Moreover didn’t she mention that Mr. Moreen and the others were enjoying themselves at the opera with Mr. Granger, and wasn’t THAT also precisely where one would look for them on the eve of a smash? Pemberton gathered that Mr. Granger was a rich vacant American - a big bill with a flourishy heading and no items; so that one of Paula’s “ideas” was probably that this time she hadn’t missed fire - by which straight shot indeed she would have shattered the general cohesion. And if the cohesion was to crumble what would become of poor Pemberton? He felt quite enough bound up with them to figure to his alarm as a dislodged block in the edifice.
It was Morgan who eventually asked if no supper had been ordered for him; sitting with him below, later, at the dim delayed meal, in the presence of a great deal of corded green plush, a plate of ornamental biscuit and an aloofness marked on the part of the waiter. Mrs. Moreen had explained that they had been obliged to secure a room for the visitor out of the house; and Morgan’s consolation - he offered it while Pemberton reflected on the nastiness of lukewarm sauces - proved to be, largely, that his circumstance would facilitate their escape. He talked of their escape - recurring to it often afterwards - as if they were making up a “boy’s book” together. But he likewise expressed his sense that there was something in the air, that the Moreens couldn’t keep it up much longer. In point of fact, as Pemberton was to see, they kept it up for five or six months. All the while, however, Morgan’s contention was designed to cheer him. Mr. Moreen and Ulick, whom he had met the day after his return, accepted that return like perfect men of the world. If Paula and Amy treated it even with less formality an allowance was to be made for them, inasmuch as Mr. Granger hadn’t come to the opera after all. He had only placed his box at their service, with a bouquet for each of the party; there was even one apiece, embittering the thought of his profusion, for Mr. Moreen and Ulick. “They’re all like that,” was Morgan’s comment; “at the very last, just when we think we’ve landed them they’re back in the deep sea!”
Morgan’s comments in these days were more and more free; they even included a large recognition of the extraordinary tenderness with which he had been treated while Pemberton was away. Oh yes, they couldn’t do enough to be nice to him, to show him they had him on their mind and make up for his loss. That was just what made the whole thing so sad and caused him to rejoice after all in Pemberton’s return - he had to keep thinking of their affection less, had less sense of obligation. Pemberton laughed out at this last reason, and Morgan blushed and said: “Well, dash it, you know what I mean.” Pemberton knew perfectly what he meant; but there were a good many things that - dash it too! - it didn’t make any clearer. This episode of his second sojourn in Paris stretched itself out wearily, with their resumed readings and wanderings and maunderings, their potterings on the quays, their hauntings of the museums, their occasional lingerings in the Palais Royal when the first sharp weather came on and there was a comfort in warm emanations, before Chevet’s wonderful succulent window. Morgan wanted to hear all about the opulent youth - he took an immense interest in him. Some of the details of his opulence - Pemberton could spare him none of them - evidently fed the boy’s appreciation of all his friend had given up to come back to him; but in addition to the greater reciprocity established by that heroism he had always his little brooding theory, in which there was a frivolous gaiety too, that their long probation was drawing to a close. Morgan’s conviction that the Moreens couldn’t go on much longer kept pace with the unexpended impetus with which, from month to month, they did go on. Three weeks after Pemberton had rejoined them they went on to another hotel, a dingier one than the first; but Morgan rejoiced that his tutor had at least still not sacrificed the advantage of a room outside. He clung to the romantic utility of this when the day, or rather the night, should arrive for their escape.