And yet I must wait and do nothing, and partake of my meals, and
entertain the ever-garrulous Rowley, as though I were entirely my
own man. And if I did not require to entertain Mrs. McRankine
also, that was but another drop of bitterness in my cup! For what
ailed my landlady, that she should hold herself so severely aloof,
that she should refuse conversation, that her eyes should be
reddened, that I should so continually hear the voice of her
private supplications sounding through the house? I was much
deceived, or she had read the insidious paragraph and recognised
the comminated pearl-grey suit. I remember now a certain air with
which she had laid the paper on my table, and a certain sniff,
between sympathy and defiance, with which she had announced it:
'There's your Mercury for ye!'
In this direction, at least, I saw no pressing danger; her tragic
countenance betokened agitation; it was plain she was wrestling
with her conscience, and the battle still hung dubious. The
question of what to do troubled me extremely. I could not venture
to touch such an intricate and mysterious piece of machinery as my
landlady's spiritual nature: it might go off at a word, and in any
direction, like a badly-made firework. And while I praised myself
extremely for my wisdom in the past, that I had made so much a
friend of her, I was all abroad as to my conduct in the present.
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