“Steady on, mother,” said Vivie, propping her up, and feeling oh! so clean and pure and fresh and wholesome by contrast with this worn-out woman of pleasure.  “Lie down again on your sofa, go on with your petit dejeuner—­which is surely rather late?  There were signs and appetizing smells of the larger meal being imminent as I passed through the hotel.  Now just lie down until you want to dress—­if you like, I’ll help you dress” (swallowing hard to choke down a little shudder of repulsion).  “I’m not in any hurry.  I’ve come to Brussels to go into matters thoroughly.  For the present, I am staying at the Hotel Grimaud.”

Mrs. Warren was convulsively sobbing and ruining the complexion she had just made up, before she changed out of her descente de lit:  “Why not stop here, dearie?  Don’t laugh!  There’s lots that do and never suspect for one minute it ain’t like any other hotel; though from all I see and hear, all hotels are pretty much the same now-a-days, whether they’re called by my name or not.  Of course a man might find out pretty quick, but not a woman who wasn’t in the business herself.  Why we actually encourage decent women to come here when we ain’t pressed for room.  They give the place a better tone, don’t you know.  There’s two clergyman’s sisters come here most autumns and stop and stop and don’t notice anything.  They come in here and chat with me, and once they said they liked foreign gentlemen better than their own fellow-countrymen:  ’their manners are so affable.’  Why it was partly through people like that, that I got to hear every now and then what you was up to.  Oh, I wasn’t taken in long by that David Williams business.  Praddy didn’t give you away—­to speak of, when I sent you that thousand pounds—­Lord, I was glad you kept it!  But what fixed me was your portrait in the Daily Mirror a couple of years ago as ’the Brilliant young Advocate, Mr. David Vavasour Williams.’  Somehow the ‘Vavasour’ seemed to fit in all right, though what you wanted with my—­ahem—­maiden name, with what was pore mother’s reel name, before she lived with your grandfather—­Well as I say, I soon saw through the whole bag o’ tricks—­But what a lark!  Beat anythink I ever did.  What have you done with your duds?  Gone back to bein’ Vivie once more?—­”

Vivie:  “I’ll tell you all about it in good time.  But I would rather not stay here all the same.  I’ve found a quiet hotel near the station.  I will come and see you if you can make it easy for me; but what I should very much prefer, if you can only get away from this horrid place, is that you should come and see me.  Why shouldn’t you give yourself a fortnight’s holiday and go off with me to Louvain ... or to Spa ... or some other quiet place where we can talk over everything to our heart’s content?”