I have not the smallest desire to make excuses for such foolishness as I displayed, at this or any other period. But I think it just to remind myself that there are worse things than foolishness, and that my relations with Fanny might conceivably have formed a darker page for me to look back upon than they actually did form. We both were young, both lonely; neither of us had found much tenderness in life, and I--I was passing through an extremely emotional phase of life, as my work of that period clearly shows. Within a month of that evening of the supper in my room, Fanny and I were married in a registrar's office in St. Pancras, and set up housekeeping in one tiny bedroom and a sitting-room in Camden Town. I had convinced Fanny that this was the only way out of her troubles, and goodness knows I believed it. Heron refused point blank to witness the ceremony, such as it was; but he shared our table at his favourite little French restaurant that evening, and even consented to prolong the festive occasion by spending a further hour with us in our new quarters. I think Fanny was pretty much preoccupied in wondering what her mother would make of the joint note we had left for her. (I had removed all my belongings from No. 37 several days before.) But I thought she made a pretty little figure as a bride--gentle, clinging, tender, and no more than agreeably shy. And Heron, what a revelation to me his manner was! Throughout the evening there appeared not one faintest hint of his habitual acidulated brusqueness. Not one sharp word did he speak that night, and his manner toward my wife was the perfection of gentle and considerate courtesy. I was dumbfounded and deeply moved by his really startling behaviour. He was so incredibly gentle. His parting words, such words as I had never thought to hear upon his lips, were: 'Heaven bless you both!' And then, as I could have sworn, with moisture in his eyes, he added: 'You are both good souls, and--after all, some are happy!' For so convinced and angry a cynic and pessimist, his behaviour had been remarkable. When I returned to Fanny she was admiring her pretty, new, dove-coloured frock in the fly-blown mirror of our sitting-room. Poor child, her experience of new frocks had not been extensive. 'He's a real gentleman, is Mr. Heron,' she said with a little welcoming smile to me. I liked the smile; but, almost for the first time I think, on that day at all events, her words jarred on me a little. But what jarred more perhaps was the fact that these words, so apparently innocent and harmless, sent a vagrant thought through my mind that filled me with harsh self-contempt. The thought will doubtless appear even more paltry than it was if put into words, but it was something to the effect that-- Of course, Heron was a gentleman! Why else would he be a friend of mine? Perhaps the thought was hardly so absurd as my solemn self-contempt over it! ... IX