Such play of the imaginative and speculative faculties accounts for
the common awkwardness of intelligent young men in society that is
strange to them. Only the cultivation of a double consciousness puts
them finally at ease. Impossible to converse with suavity, and to
heed the forms of ordinary good-breeding, when the brain is absorbed
in all manner of new problems: one must learn to act a part, to
control the facial mechanism, to observe and anticipate, even whilst
the intellect is spending its sincere energy on subjects unavowed.
The perfectly graceful man will always be he who has no strong
apprehension either of his own personality or of that of others, who
lives on the surface of things, who can be interested without
emotion, and surprised without contemplative impulse. Never yet had
Godwin Peak uttered a word that was worth listening to, or made a
remark that declared his mental powers, save in most familiar
colloquy. He was beginning to understand the various reasons of his
seeming clownishness, but this very process of self-study opposed an
obstacle to improvement.

When he found himself obliged to take part in conversation about
Whitelaw College, Godwin was disturbed by an uncertainty which had
never left his mind at rest during the past two years;--was it, or
was it not, generally known to his Twybridge acquaintances that he
studied as the pensioner of Sir Job Whitelaw? To outward seeming all
delicacy had been exercised in the bestowal of Sir Job's
benefaction. At the beginning of each academic session Mrs. Peak had
privately received a cheque which represented the exact outlay in
fees for the course her son was pursuing; payment was then made to
the registrar as if from Peak himself. But Lady Whitelaw's sisters
were in the secret, and was it likely that they maintained absolute