then, but it didn't embarrass me now, for I had lived with it and
overcome it and disposed of it. "A real gentleman? Emphatically
not!"

My promptitude surprised her a little, but I quickly felt how
little it was to Gravener I was now talking. "Do you say that
because he's--what do you call it in England?--of humble
extraction?"

"Not a bit. His father was a country school-master and his mother
the widow of a sexton, but that has nothing to do with it. I say
it simply because I know him well."

"But isn't it an awful drawback?"

"Awful--quite awful."

"I mean isn't it positively fatal?"

"Fatal to what? Not to his magnificent vitality."

Again she had a meditative moment. "And is his magnificent
vitality the cause of his vices?"

"Your questions are formidable, but I'm glad you put them. I was
thinking of his noble intellect. His vices, as you say, have been
much exaggerated: they consist mainly after all in one
comprehensive defect."

"A want of will?"