only intimate with one kind of cleverness, the kind that feeds itself on
lectures and on books. She had not thought of Walter as clever. She had
only thought of him as good. That one quality of goodness had swallowed
up the rest.

Miss Proctor took possession of her where she sat in the drawing-room, as
it were amid the scattered fragments of the ex-member (he still, among
the ladies, emitted a feeble radiance). Miss Proctor had always approved
of Anne. If Anne had no metropolitan distinction to speak of, she was not
in the least provincial. She was something by herself, superior and rare.
A little inclined to take herself too seriously, perhaps; but her
husband's admirable levity would, no doubt, improve her.

"My dear," said Miss Proctor, "I congratulate you. He's brilliant, he's
charming, he's unique. Why didn't we know of him before? Where has he
been hiding his talents all this time?"

(A talent that had not bloomed in Thurston Square was a talent pitiably
wasted.)

Anne smiled a blanched, perfunctory smile. Ah, where had he been hiding
himself, indeed?

Miss Proctor stood central, radiating the rich afterglow of her
appreciation. Her gaze was a little critical of her friends' faces, as
if she were measuring the effect, on a provincial audience, of Majendie's
conversational technique. She swept down to a seat beside her hostess.

"My dear Fanny," she said, "why didn't you tell me?"