he hit on the right style to top the situation, and perpetually will
he slip his head out of the noose to dance the poet's verse.

In fact, style is the mantle of greatness; and say that the greatness is
beyond our reach, we may at least pray to have the mantle.

Strangest of fancies, most unphilosophically, Gower conceived a woman's
love as that which would bestow the gift upon a man so bare of it as he.
Where was the woman? He embraced the idea of the sex, and found it
resolving to a form of one. He stood humbly before the one, and she
waned into swarms of her sisters. So did she charge him with the loving
of her sex, not her. And could it be denied, if he wanted a woman's love
just to give him a style? No, not that, but to make him feel proud of
himself. That was the heart's way of telling him a secret in owning to
a weakness. Within it the one he had thought of forthwith obtained her
lodgement. He discovered this truth, in this roundabout way, and knew it
a truth by the warm fireside glow the contemplation of her cast over him.

Dining alone, as he usually had to do, he was astonished to see the earl
enter his room.

'Ah, you always make the right choice!' Fleetwood said, and requested
him to come to the library when he had done eating.

Gower imagined an accident. A metallic ring was in the earl's voice.

One further mouthful finished dinner, for Gower was anxious concerning
the ladies. He joined the earl and asked.

'Safe. Oh yes. We managed to keep it from them,' said Fleetwood.