There is still nothing here but Thackeray's amusing,
irrepressible conversation _about_ the scene; he cannot make up his
mind to clear a space before it and give the situation the free field
it cries out for. And if it is asked what kind of clarity I mean, I
need only recall another page, close by, which shows it perfectly.
Becky had made an earlier appearance at Gaunt House; she had dined
there, near the beginning of her social career, and had found herself
in a difficulty; there came a moment when she had to face the frigid
hostility of the noble ladies of the party, alone with them in the
drawing-room, and her assurance failed. In the little scene that
ensues the charming veil of Thackeray's talk is suddenly raised; there
is Becky seated at the piano, Lady Steyne listening in a dream of old
memories, the other women chattering at a distance, when the jarring
doors are thrown open and the men return. It is all over in half a
page, but in that glimpse the story is lifted forward dramatically;
ocular proof, as it were, is added to Thackeray's account of Becky's
doubtful and delicate position. As a matter of curiosity I mention the
one moment in the later episode, the evening of those strangely
ineffective charades at Gaunt House, which appears to me to open the
same kind of rift in the haze; it is a single glimpse of Steyne,
applauding Becky's triumph.
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