I heard all this with satisfaction. The offer meant a lot more work
for me, but I did not mind that, with success--dear success--in
view. I closed with his proposition at once, and after some
formalities and details had been gone into and settled, I rushed
home to tell Howard.
So, for a time, settled into working intellectual grooves, our life
ran on quietly from day to day with a fair prospect on ahead of us.
And then came an unlucky incident which jerked the wheels of
Howard's existence out of the narrow, hard line of effort, and after
that they ran along anyhow, sometimes on and sometimes off it, and
kept me in dread of a total smash. The Champs Elysees were full of
the late afternoon sunlight, and we sauntered slowly, criticising
the occupants of the various carriages rolling up to the great arch
of Napoleon, and arguing in a broken, desultory way on our usual
subject of talk--literature.
Howard was on the outside, nearest the road, walking on the actual
kerb, and flicking up the leaves in the gutter, as he talked, with
the point of his cane. As we strolled, with our eyes more or less
directed on the string of vehicles moving in the centre of the sunny
road, we noticed one small, black brougham going the same way as
ourselves, that seemed conspicuous by being closed amongst the rest
of the open victorias.
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