Sometimes Clarissa met George Fairfax in her brother's painting-room; so often, indeed, that she scarcely cared to keep an account of these meetings. Austin knew a good many clever agreeable Americans and Frenchmen, and his room was a pleasant lounge for idle young men, with some interest in art, and plenty to say upon every subject in the universe. If there were strangers in the painting-room when Mrs. Granger came to the Rue du Chevalier Bayard, she remained in the little salon, talking to her sister-in-law and the two precocious nephews; but it happened generally that George Fairfax, by some mysterious means, became aware of her presence, and one of the folding-doors would open presently, and the tall figure appear. "Those fellows have fairly smoked me out, Mrs. Austin," he would say.--"Ah, how do you do, Mrs. Granger? I hope you'll excuse any odour of Victorias and Patagas I may bring with me. Your brother's Yankee friends smoke like so many peripatetic furnaces." And then he would plant himself against a corner of the mantelpiece, and remain a fixture till Clarissa departed. It was half-an-hour's talk that was almost a tete-a-tete. Bessie Lovel counted for so little between those two. Half-an-hour of dangerous happiness, which made all the rest of Mrs. Granger's life seem dull and colourless; the thought of which even came between her and her child. Sometimes she resolved that she would go no more to that shabby street on the "Surrey side"; but the resolve was always broken. Either Austin had asked her to come for some special reason, or the poor little wife had begged some favour of her, which required personal attention; there was always something. Those were pleasant afternoons, when the painting-room was empty of strangers, and Clarissa sat in a low chair by the fire, while George Fairfax and her brother talked. Austin was never so brilliant as in George's company; the two men suited each other, had lived in the same world, and loved the same things. They talked of all things in heaven and earth, touching lightly upon all, and with a careless kind of eloquence that had an especial fascination for the listener. It seemed as if she had scarcely lived in the dull interval between those charmed days at Hale Castle and these hours of perilous delight; as if she had been half-stifled by the atmosphere of common-sense which had pervaded her existence--crushed and borne down by the weight of Daniel Granger's sober companionship. _This_ was fairyland--a region of enchantment, fall of bright thoughts and pleasant fancies; _that_ a dismal level drill-ground, upon which all the world marched in solid squares, to the monotonous cry of a serjeant-major's word of command. One may ride through a world of weariness in a barouche-and-pair. Clarissa had not found her husband's wealth by any means a perennial source of happiness, nor even the possession of Arden an unfailing consolation.