I heard from Dora oftener, Harris declared, than he did.

She was spending the winter with friends in Agra, and Armour, of course, was there too, living at Laurie's Hotel, and painting, Dora assured me, with immense energy.
It was just the place for Armour, a sumptuous dynasty wrecked in white marble and buried in desert sands for three hundred years; and I was glad to hear that he was making the most of it.

It was quite by the way, but I had lent him the money to go there--somebody had to lend it to him--and when he asked me to decide whether he should take his passage for Marseilles or use it for this other purpose I could hardly hesitate, believing in him, as I did, to urge him to paint a little more of India before he went.

I frankly despaired of his ever being able to pay his way in Simla without Kauffer, but that was no reason why he should not make a few more notes for further use at home, where I sometimes saw for him, when his desultory and experimental days were over and some definiteness and order had come into his work, a Bond Street exhibition.
I have not said all this time what I thought of Ingersoll Armour and Dora Harris together, because their connection seemed too vague and fantastic and impossible to hold for an instant before a steady gaze.

I have no wish to justify myself when I write that I preferred to keep my eyes averted, enjoying perhaps just such a measure of vision as would enter at a corner of them.