Gathering
a certain liking for him, he began to make him an occasional companion
for the evening, and at length would sometimes take him home with him.
There Cornelius at once laid himself out to please Miss Vavasor, and
flattery went a long way with that lady, because she had begun to
suspect herself no longer young or beautiful. Her house was a dingy
little hut in Mayfair, full of worthless pictures and fine old-fashioned
furniture. Any piece of this she would for a long time gladly have
exchanged for a new one in the fashion, but as soon as she found such
things themselves the fashion, her appreciation of them rose to such
fervor that she professed an unchangeable preference for them over
things of any modern style whatever. Cornelius soon learned what he must
admire and what despise if he would be in tune with Miss Vavasor, to the
false importance of being one of whose courtiers he was so much alive
that he counted it one of the most precious of his secrets; none of his
family had heard of Mr. Vavasor even, before the encounter at the
aquarium.
From Miss Vavasor's Cornelius had been invited to several other houses,
and the consequence was that he looked from an ever growing height upon
his own people, judging not one of them fit for the grand company to
which his merits, unappreciated at home, had introduced him.
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