He himself was in for it at any rate.  He should have Morgan on his hands again indefinitely; though indeed he saw the lad had a private theory to produce which would be intended to smooth this down.  He was obliged to him for it in advance; but the suggested amendment didn’t keep his heart rather from sinking, any more than it prevented him from accepting the prospect on the spot, with some confidence moreover that he should do so even better if he could have a little supper.  Mrs. Moreen threw out more hints about the changes that were to be looked for, but she was such a mixture of smiles and shudders—­she confessed she was very nervous—­that he couldn’t tell if she were in high feather or only in hysterics.  If the family was really at last going to pieces why shouldn’t she recognise the necessity of pitching Morgan into some sort of lifeboat?  This presumption was fostered by the fact that they were established in luxurious quarters in the capital of pleasure; that was exactly where they naturally would be established in view of going to pieces.  Moreover didn’t she mention that Mr. Moreen and the others were enjoying themselves at the opera with Mr. Granger, and wasn’t that also precisely where one would look for them on the eve of a smash?  Pemberton gathered that Mr. Granger was a rich vacant American—­a big bill with a flourishy heading and no items; so that one of Paula’s “ideas” was probably that this time she hadn’t missed fire—­by which straight shot indeed she would have shattered the general cohesion.  And if the cohesion was to crumble what would become of poor Pemberton?  He felt quite enough bound up with them to figure to his alarm as a dislodged block in the edifice.

It was Morgan who eventually asked if no supper had been ordered for him; sitting with him below, later, at the dim delayed meal, in the presence of a great deal of corded green plush, a plate of ornamental biscuit and an aloofness marked on the part of the waiter.  Mrs. Moreen had explained that they had been obliged to secure a room for the visitor out of the house; and Morgan’s consolation—­he offered it while Pemberton reflected on the nastiness of lukewarm sauces—­proved to be, largely, that his circumstance would facilitate their escape.  He talked of their escape—­recurring to it often afterwards—­as if they were making up a “boy’s book” together.  But he likewise expressed his sense that there was something in the air, that the Moreens couldn’t keep it up much longer.  In point of fact, as Pemberton was to see, they kept it up for five or six months.  All the while, however, Morgan’s contention was designed to cheer him.  Mr. Moreen and Ulick, whom he had met the day after his return, accepted that return like perfect men of the world.  If Paula and Amy treated it even with less formality an allowance was to be made for them, inasmuch as Mr. Granger hadn’t come to the opera after all.  He had only placed his box at their service, with a bouquet for each of the party; there was even one apiece, embittering the thought of his profusion, for Mr. Moreen and Ulick.  “They’re all like that,” was Morgan’s comment; “at the very last, just when we think we’ve landed them they’re back in the deep sea!”