native cheekiness faded into most unwonted humility. For he was
increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly "up against something
pretty big." Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own
power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag. Sir
Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism.
He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost.
There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, of
initiative and of thought. Only once or twice, during the course of their
long talk, did the young man detect any sign of personal feeling. Then
for an instant, some veil seemed to be lifted, some curtain drawn aside;
while, with dazzling effect, he became cognizant of underlying
bitterness, underlying romance--of secret dealings of man with man, of
man with woman, and the dealing, arbitrary, immutable, final, of Death
and a Greater than Death, with both.

These revelations though of the briefest, over before he fairly grasped
their import, gone like a breath, were still sufficient to discredit many
preconceived ideas and enlarge his mental horizon to a somewhat anxious
extent. They carried him very far from life as lived at Canton Magna
Rectory; very far from all, indeed, in which the roots of his experience
were set, thus producing an atmosphere of doubt, of haunting and
insidious unrest.

And of that atmosphere he was particularly sensible when, standing in
the hall, flat candlestick in hand, he at last bade Sir Charles Verity
good night.

"It has been a wonderful evening, sir," he said, simply and modestly.
"You have been awfully kind in sparing me so much of your time; but,
indeed, it has not been time wasted. I begin to measure a little what