’I like to hear him talk like that.  Yes, I do like him better after what you have said, Frank.’

’You must remember two things about him, Maude.  The first, that he was a Scotchman, who are of all men the least likely to wear their hearts upon their sleeves; the other, that his mind was always grappling with some far-away subject which made him forget the smaller things close by him.’

‘But the smaller things are everything to a woman,’ said Maude.  ’If ever you forget those smaller things, sir, to be as courteous to your wife as you would be to any other lady, to be loving and thoughtful and sympathetic, it will be no consolation to me to know that you have written the grandest book that ever was.  I should just hate that book, and I believe that in her inmost heart this poor lady hated all the books that had taken her husband away from her.  I wonder if their house is still standing.’

‘Certainly it is.  Would you like to visit it?’

‘I don’t think there is anything I should like more.’

’Why, Maude, we are getting quite a distinguished circle of acquaintances.  Mr. Pepys last month—­and now the Carlyles.  Well, we could not spend a Saturday afternoon better, so if you will meet me to-morrow at Charing Cross, we shall have a cosy little lunch together at Gatti’s, and then go down to Chelsea.’

Maude was a rigid economist, and so was Frank in his way, for with the grand self-respect of the middle classes the thought of debt was unendurable to them.  A cab in preference to a ’bus gave both of them a feeling of dissipation, but none the less they treated themselves to one on the occasion of this, their little holiday.  It is a delightful thing to snuggle up in, is a hansom; but in order to be really trim and comfortable one has to put one’s arm round one’s companion’s waist.  No one can observe it there, for the vehicle is built upon intelligent principles.  The cabman, it is true, can overlook you through a hole in the roof.  This cabman did so, and chuckled in his cravat.  ’If that cove’s wife could see him—­huddup, then!’ said the cabman.

He was an intelligent cabman too, for having heard Frank say ’Thomas Carlyle’s house’ after giving the address 5 Cheyne Row, he pulled up on the Thames Embankment.  Right ahead of them was Chelsea Bridge, seen through a dim, soft London haze—­monstrous, Cyclopean, giant arches springing over a vague river of molten metal, the whole daintily blurred, as though out of focus.  The glamour of the London haze, what is there upon earth so beautiful?  But it was not to admire it that the cabman had halted.

‘I beg your pardin’, sir,’ said he, in the softly insinuating way of the Cockney, ’but I thought that maybe the lidy would like to see Mr. Carlyle’s statue.  That’s ‘im, sir, a-sittin’ in the overcoat with the book in ’is ‘and.’

Frank and Maude got out and entered the small railed garden, in the centre of which the pedestal rose.  It was very simple and plain—­an old man in a dressing-gown, with homely wornout boots, a book upon his knee, his eyes and thoughts far away.  No more simple statue in all London, but human to a surprising degree.  They stood for five minutes and stared at it.