The impression he made on me personally was such that I
wished him to read it, and I corrected to this end with a
surreptitious hand what might be wanting in the careless
conspicuity of the sheet. I'm afraid I even watched the result of
my manoeuvre, but up to luncheon I watched in vain.
When afterwards, in the course of our gregarious walk, I found
myself for half an hour, not perhaps without another manoeuvre, at
the great man's side, the result of his affability was a still
livelier desire that he shouldn't remain in ignorance of the
peculiar justice I had done him. It wasn't that he seemed to
thirst for justice; on the contrary I hadn't yet caught in his talk
the faintest grunt of a grudge--a note for which my young
experience had already given me an ear. Of late he had had more
recognition, and it was pleasant, as we used to say in The Middle,
to see how it drew him out. He wasn't of course popular, but I
judged one of the sources of his good humour to be precisely that
his success was independent of that. He had none the less become
in a manner the fashion; the critics at least had put on a spurt
and caught up with him. We had found out at last how clever he
was, and he had had to make the best of the loss of his mystery. I
was strongly tempted, as I walked beside him, to let him know how
much of that unveiling was my act; and there was a moment when I
probably should have done so had not one of the ladies of our
party, snatching a place at his other elbow, just then appealed to
him in a spirit comparatively selfish.
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