"Why funny?" asked he.

"It's so unlikely that one should seem a genius to one's old
familiar friends."

"Did I say he seemed a genius to me? I misled you. He does
n't. In fact, he very frequently seems--but, for Charity's
sake, I 'd best forbear to tell. However, I admire his book.
And--to be entirely frank--it's a constant source of
astonishment to me that he should ever have been able to do
anything one-tenth so good."

The Duchessa smiled pensively.

"Ah, well," she mused, "we must assume that he has happy
moments--or, perhaps, two soul-sides, one to face the world
with, one to show his manuscripts when he's writing. You hint
a fault, and hesitate dislike. That, indeed, is only natural,
on the part of an old friend. But you pique my interest. What
is the trouble with him? Is--is he conceited, for example?"

"The trouble with him?" Peter pondered. "Oh, it would be too
long and too sad a story. Should I anatomise him to you as he
is, I must blush and weep, and you must look pale and wonder.
He has pretty nearly every weakness, not to mention vices, that
flesh is heir to. But as for conceit . . . let me see. He
concurs in my own high opinion of his work, I believe; but I
don't know whether, as literary men go, it would be fair to
call him conceited. He belongs, at any rate, to the