like to be supposed to have a real
affinity with. Help me to them, Mr. Longdon; help me to them, and I
don't know what I won't do for you!"

"Then after all"--and his friend made the point with innocent
sharpness--"you're NOT past saving!"

"Well, I individually--how shall I put it to you? If I tell you,"
Vanderbank went on, "that I've that sort of fulcrum for salvation which
consists at least in a deep consciousness and the absence of a rag of
illusion, I shall appear to say I'm wholly different from the world I
live in and to that extent present myself as superior and fatuous. Try
me at any rate. Let me try myself. Don't abandon me. See what can be
done with me. Perhaps I'm after all a case. I shall certainly cling to
you."

"You're too clever--you're too clever: that's what's the matter with you
all!" Mr. Longdon sighed.

"With us ALL?" Vanderbank echoed. "Dear Mr. Longdon, it's the first time
I've heard it. If you should say the matter with ME in particular, why
there might be something in it. What you mean at any rate--I see where
you come out--is that we're cold and sarcastic and cynical, without the
soft human spot. I think you flatter us even while you attempt to warn;
but what's extremely interesting at all events is that, as I gather,
we made on you this evening, in a particular way, a collective
impression--something in which our trifling varieties are merged." His
visitor's face, at this, appeared to acknowledge his putting the case
in perfection, so that he was encouraged to go on. "There was something
particular with which you weren't altogether pleasantly struck."

Mr. Longdon, who decidedly changed colour easily, showed in his clear
cheek the effect at once of feeling a finger on his fault and of
admiring his companion's insight. But he accepted the situation. "I
couldn't help noticing your tone."

"Do you mean its being so low?"

He had smiled at first but looked grave now. "Do you really want to
know?"

"Just how you were affected? I assure you there's at this moment nothing
I desire nearly so much."

"I'm no judge then," Mr. Longdon began; "I'm no critic; I'm no talker
myself. I'm old-fashioned and narrow and ignorant. I've lived for years
in a hole. I'm not a man of the world."

Vanderbank considered him with a benevolence, a geniality of approval,
that he literally had to hold in check for fear of seeming to patronise.
"There's not one of us who can touch you. You're delightful, you're