"Yes?" he jogged. "Even so—what?"
"Oh, nothing. I only mean that I'm not afraid of him—that is," I corrected, "I'm not afraid of him fundamentally."
He laughed again. "Not afraid of him fundamentally! That's fine!" Something in his glance seemed to approve of me. "No, I don't believe you are; but I wonder a little why not."
I reflected, gazing beyond his shoulder, down the velvety slopes of the lawn, and across the dancing blue sea to the islets that were mere specks on the horizon. In the end I decided to speak soberly. "I'm not afraid of him," I said at last, "because I've got a sure thing."
"You mean him?"
I knew the reference was to Hugh Brokenshire. "If I mean him," I replied, after a minute's thinking, "it's only as the greater includes the less, or as the universal includes everything."
He whistled under his breath.
"Does that mean anything? Or is it just big talk?"
Half shy and half ashamed of going on with what I had to say, I was obliged to smile ruefully.
"It's big talk because it's a big principle. I don't know how to manage it with anything small." I tried to explain further, knowing that my dark skin flushed to a kind of dahlia-red while I was doing so. "I don't know whether I've read it—or whether I heard it—or whether I've just evolved it—but I seem to have got hold of—of—don't laugh too hard, please—of the secret of success."