'May I see?' asked Mrs Yule, under her breath, bending to Marian.

Her daughter passed on the volume, and Mrs Yule read the footnote
with that look of slow apprehension which is so pathetic when it
signifies the heart's good-will thwarted by the mind's defect.

'That'll be good for you, Alfred, won't it?' she said, glancing
at her husband.

'Certainly,' he replied, with a smile of contemptuous irony. 'If
Hinks goes on, he'll establish my reputation.'

And he took a draught of ale, like one who is reinvigorated for
the battle of life. Marian, regarding him askance, mused on what
seemed to her a strange anomaly in his character; it had often
surprised her that a man of his temperament and powers should be
so dependent upon the praise and blame of people whom he justly
deemed his inferiors.

Yule was glancing over the pages of the work.

'A pity the man can't write English.' What a vocabulary!
Obstruent--reliable--particularization--fabulosity--different
to--averse to--did one ever come across such a mixture of antique
pedantry and modern vulgarism! Surely he has his name from the
German hinken--eh, Marian?'

With a laugh he tossed the book away again. His mood was wholly
changed. He gave various evidences of enjoying the meal, and