Mrs Yule, a lady rather too pretentious in
her tone to be attractive to a man of Reardon's refinement,
hastened to assure him how well his books were known in her
house, 'though for the run of ordinary novels we don't care
much.' Miss Yule, not at all pretentious in speech, and seemingly
reserved of disposition, was good enough to show frank interest
in the author. As for the poor author himself, well, he merely
fell in love with Miss Yule at first sight, and there was an end
of the matter.
A day or two later he made a call at their house, in the region
of Westbourne Park. It was a small house, and rather showily than
handsomely furnished; no one after visiting it would be
astonished to hear that Mrs Edmund Yule had but a small income,
and that she was often put to desperate expedients to keep up the
gloss of easy circumstances. In the gauzy and fluffy and varnishy
little drawing-room Reardon found a youngish gentleman already in
conversation with the widow and her daughter. This proved to be
one Mr Jasper Milvain, also a man of letters. Mr Milvain was glad
to meet Reardon, whose books he had read with decided interest.
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