But this could not go on indefinitely, and for more than a week now conversation between the two had been a trying matter.

For Mr.
Musselwhite to sustain a dialogue on such topics as Barbara had made her own was impossible, and he had no faculty even for the commonest kind of impersonal talk.

He devoted himself to his dinner in amiable silence, enjoying the consciousness that nearly an hour of occupation was before him, and that bed-time lay at no hopeless distance.
Moreover, there was a boy--yet it is doubtful whether he should be so described; for, though he numbered rather less than sixteen years, experience had already made him _blase_.

He sat beside his mother, a Mrs.Strangwich.For Master Strangwich the ordinary sources of youthful satisfaction did not exist; he talked with the mature on terms of something more than equality, and always gave them the impression that they had still much to learn.

This objectionable youth had long since been everywhere and seen everything.