As the ostensible eve of a costly journey the moment had
struck him as favourable to an earnest protest, the presentation of an
ultimatum. Ridiculous as it sounded, he had never yet been able to
compass an uninterrupted private interview with the elder pair or with
either of them singly. They were always flanked by their elder children,
and poor Pemberton usually had his own little charge at his side. He was
conscious of its being a house in which the surface of one's delicacy got
rather smudged; nevertheless he had preserved the bloom of his scruple
against announcing to Mr. and Mrs. Moreen with publicity that he
shouldn't be able to go on longer without a little money. He was still
simple enough to suppose Ulick and Paula and Amy might not know that
since his arrival he had only had a hundred and forty francs; and he was
magnanimous enough to wish not to compromise their parents in their eyes.
Mr. Moreen now listened to him, as he listened to every one and to every
thing, like a man of the world, and seemed to appeal to him--though not
of course too grossly--to try and be a little more of one himself.
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