They had the happier feeling of composure, though Tasso possessed the room.  Not Tasso, but a sublimated offensiveness, issue of the antagonistically combined, dispersed to be the more penetrating; insomuch that it seemed to them they could not ever again make use of eau d’Arquebusade without the vitiating reminder.  So true were the words of Mr. Stuart Rem:  ’Half measures to purification are the most delusive of our artifices.’  Fatigue and its reflections helped to be peacefuller.  Their souls were mounting to a serenity above the nauseating degradation, to which the poor little dog had dragged them.

‘Victor gave his promise.’

‘At least, concession would not imply contact with the guilty.’

Both sighed as they took up the burden of the vaporous Tasso to drop him; with the greater satisfaction in the expelling of their breath.

’It might be said, dear, that concession to his entreaty does not in any way countenance the sin.’

‘I can see, dear, how it might be read as a reproof.’

Their exchange of sentences followed meditative pauses; Dorothea leading.

‘To one so sensitive as Victor!’

‘A month or two of our society for the child!’

‘It is not the length of time.’

‘The limitation assures against maternal claims.’

‘She would not dare.’

’He used the words:  “her serious respect” for us.  I should not wish to listen to him often.’

‘We listen to a higher.’

‘It may really be, that the child is like him.’

‘Not resembling Mr. Stuart Rem’s Clementina!’

‘A week of that child gave us our totally sleepless night.’  ’One thinks more hopefully of a child of Victor’s.’

‘He would preponderate.’

‘He would.’

They sighed; but it was now with the relief of a lightened oppression.

’If, dear, in truth the father’s look is in the child, he has the greater reason to desire for her a taste of our atmosphere.’

‘Do not pursue it.  Sleep.’

‘One prayer!’

’Your mention of our atmosphere, dear, destroys my power to frame one.  Do you, for two.  But I would cleanse my heart.’

‘There is none purer.’

‘Hush.’

Virginia spoke a more fervent word of praise of her sister, and had not the hushing response to it.  She heard the soft regular breathing.  Her own was in downy fellowship with it a moment later.

At the hour of nine, in genial daylight, sitting over the crumbs of his hotel breakfast, Victor received a little note that bore the handwriting of Dorothea Duvidney.

     ’Dear Victor, we are prepared to receive the child for a month. 
     In haste, before your train.  Our love.  D. and V.’

His face flashed out of cloud.