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The touchstone
“
Professor
Joslin
,
who
,
as
our
readers
are
doubtless
aware
,
is
engaged
in
writing
the
life
of
Mrs
.
Aubyn
,
asks
us
to
state
that
he
will
be
greatly
indebted
to
any
of
the
famous
novelist
’
s
friends
who
will
furnish
him
with
information
concerning
the
period
previous
to
her
coming
to
England
.
Mrs
.
Aubyn
had
so
few
intimate
friends
,
and
consequently
so
few
regular
correspondents
,
that
letters
will
be
of
special
value
.
Professor
Joslin
’
s
address
is
10
Augusta
Gardens
,
Kensington
,
and
he
begs
us
to
say
that
he
will
promptly
return
any
documents
entrusted
to
him
.
”
Glennard
dropped
the
Spectator
and
sat
looking
into
the
fire
.
The
club
was
filling
up
,
but
he
still
had
to
himself
the
small
inner
room
,
with
its
darkening
outlook
down
the
rain
-
streaked
prospect
of
Fifth
Avenue
.
It
was
all
dull
and
dismal
enough
,
yet
a
moment
earlier
his
boredom
had
been
perversely
tinged
by
a
sense
of
resentment
at
the
thought
that
,
as
things
were
going
,
he
might
in
time
have
to
surrender
even
the
despised
privilege
of
boring
himself
within
those
particular
four
walls
.
It
was
not
that
he
cared
much
for
the
club
,
but
that
the
remote
contingency
of
having
to
give
it
up
stood
to
him
,
just
then
,
perhaps
by
very
reason
of
its
insignificance
and
remoteness
,
for
the
symbol
of
his
increasing
abnegations
;
of
that
perpetual
paring
-
off
that
was
gradually
reducing
existence
to
the
naked
business
of
keeping
himself
alive
.
It
was
the
futility
of
his
multiplied
shifts
and
privations
that
made
them
seem
unworthy
of
a
high
attitude
;
the
sense
that
,
however
rapidly
he
eliminated
the
superfluous
,
his
cleared
horizon
was
likely
to
offer
no
nearer
view
of
the
one
prospect
toward
which
he
strained
.
To
give
up
things
in
order
to
marry
the
woman
one
loves
is
easier
than
to
give
them
up
without
being
brought
appreciably
nearer
to
such
a
conclusion
.
Through
the
open
door
he
saw
young
Hollingsworth
rise
with
a
yawn
from
the
ineffectual
solace
of
a
brandy
-
and
-
soda
and
transport
his
purposeless
person
to
the
window
.
Glennard
measured
his
course
with
a
contemptuous
eye
.
It
was
so
like
Hollingsworth
to
get
up
and
look
out
of
the
window
just
as
it
was
growing
too
dark
to
see
anything
!
There
was
a
man
rich
enough
to
do
what
he
pleased
—
had
he
been
capable
of
being
pleased
—
yet
barred
from
all
conceivable
achievement
by
his
own
impervious
dulness
;
while
,
a
few
feet
off
,
Glennard
,
who
wanted
only
enough
to
keep
a
decent
coat
on
his
back
and
a
roof
over
the
head
of
the
woman
he
loved
Glennard
,
who
had
sweated
,
toiled
,
denied
himself
for
the
scant
measure
of
opportunity
that
his
zeal
would
have
converted
into
a
kingdom
—
sat
wretchedly
calculating
that
,
even
when
he
had
resigned
from
the
club
,
and
knocked
off
his
cigars
,
and
given
up
his
Sundays
out
of
town
,
he
would
still
be
no
nearer
attainment
.
The
Spectator
had
slipped
to
his
feet
and
as
he
picked
it
up
his
eye
fell
again
on
the
paragraph
addressed
to
the
friends
of
Mrs
.
Aubyn
.
He
had
read
it
for
the
first
time
with
a
scarcely
perceptible
quickening
of
attention
:
her
name
had
so
long
been
public
property
that
his
eye
passed
it
unseeingly
,
as
the
crowd
in
the
street
hurries
without
a
glance
by
some
familiar
monument
.
“
Information
concerning
the
period
previous
to
her
coming
to
England
.
.
.
.
”
The
words
were
an
evocation
.
He
saw
her
again
as
she
had
looked
at
their
first
meeting
,
the
poor
woman
of
genius
with
her
long
pale
face
and
short
-
sighted
eyes
,
softened
a
little
by
the
grace
of
youth
and
inexperience
,
but
so
incapable
even
then
of
any
hold
upon
the
pulses
.
When
she
spoke
,
indeed
,
she
was
wonderful
,
more
wonderful
,
perhaps
,
than
when
later
,
to
Glennard
’
s
fancy
at
least
,
the
consciousness
of
memorable
things
uttered
seemed
to
take
from
even
her
most
intimate
speech
the
perfect
bloom
of
privacy
.
It
was
in
those
earliest
days
,
if
ever
,
that
he
had
come
near
loving
her
;
though
even
then
his
sentiment
had
lived
only
in
the
intervals
of
its
expression
.
Later
,
when
to
be
loved
by
her
had
been
a
state
to
touch
any
man
’
s
imagination
,
the
physical
reluctance
had
,
inexplicably
,
so
overborne
the
intellectual
attraction
,
that
the
last
years
had
been
,
to
both
of
them
,
an
agony
of
conflicting
impulses
.
Even
now
,
if
,
in
turning
over
old
papers
,
his
hand
lit
on
her
letters
,
the
touch
filled
him
with
inarticulate
misery
.
.
.
.
“
She
had
so
few
intimate
friends
.
.
.
that
letters
will
be
of
special
value
.
”
So
few
intimate
friends
!
For
years
she
had
had
but
one
;
one
who
in
the
last
years
had
requited
her
wonderful
pages
,
her
tragic
outpourings
of
love
,
humility
,
and
pardon
,
with
the
scant
phrases
by
which
a
man
evades
the
vulgarest
of
sentimental
importunities
.
He
had
been
a
brute
in
spite
of
himself
,
and
sometimes
,
now
that
the
remembrance
of
her
face
had
faded
,
and
only
her
voice
and
words
remained
with
him
,
he
chafed
at
his
own
inadequacy
,
his
stupid
inability
to
rise
to
the
height
of
her
passion
.
His
egoism
was
not
of
a
kind
to
mirror
its
complacency
in
the
adventure
.
To
have
been
loved
by
the
most
brilliant
woman
of
her
day
,
and
to
have
been
incapable
of
loving
her
,
seemed
to
him
,
in
looking
back
,
the
most
derisive
evidence
of
his
limitations
;
and
his
remorseful
tenderness
for
her
memory
was
complicated
with
a
sense
of
irritation
against
her
for
having
given
him
once
for
all
the
measure
of
his
emotional
capacity
.
It
was
not
often
,
however
,
that
he
thus
probed
the
past
.
The
public
,
in
taking
possession
of
Mrs
.
Aubyn
,
had
eased
his
shoulders
of
their
burden
.
There
was
something
fatuous
in
an
attitude
of
sentimental
apology
toward
a
memory
already
classic
:
to
reproach
one
’
s
self
for
not
having
loved
Margaret
Aubyn
was
a
good
deal
like
being
disturbed
by
an
inability
to
admire
the
Venus
of
Milo
.
From
her
cold
niche
of
fame
she
looked
down
ironically
enough
on
his
self
-
flagellations
.
.
.
.
