CHAPTER XXIV.
WHAT A QUESTION!
Struboff's inevitable discovery of my real name was a disaster; it delayed my operations for three days, since it filled his whole being with a sense of abasement and a hope of gain, thereby suspending for the time those emotions in him which had excited my curiosity. Clearly he had unstinted visions of lucrative patronage, dreams, probably, of a piece of coloured ribbon for his button-hole, and a right to try to induce people to call him "Chevalier." He made Coralie a present, handsome enough. I respected the conscientiousness of this act; my friendship was an unlooked-for profit, a bonus on the marriage, and he gave his wife her commission. But he seemed cased in steel against any confidence; he trembled as he poured me out a glass of wine. He had pictured me only as a desirable appendage to a gala performance; it is, of course, difficult to realize that the points at which people are important to us are not those at which they are important to themselves. However I made progress at last. The poor man's was a sad case; the sadder because only with constant effort could the onlooker keep its sadness disengaged from its absurdity, and remember that unattractiveness does not exclude misery. The wife in a marriage of interest is the spoiled child of
