Pamphilus is what the liberal call a reserved man, and the intolerant a secretive. He certainly has an aggravating way of appearing to make Asian mysteries of the commonplaces of life. He traffics in silence as others do in gossip. The “Ha!”, with which he accepts your statement of fact or conjecture, seems to imply on his part both a shrewder than ordinary knowledge of your subject, and a curiosity to study in you the popular view. One feels oddly superficial in his company, and, resentful of the imposition, blunders into self-assertive vulgarities which one knows to be misrepresentations of oneself. Do still waters always run deep? Pamphilus, it would appear, has founded his conduct on the fallacy, as if he had never observed the placid waters of the Rhine slipping over their shallow levels. One finds oneself speculating if, could one but once lay bare, suddenly, the jealous secrets of Pamphilus’s bosom, one would be impressed with anything but their unimportance. Yet, strangely, scepticism and irritation despite, one likes him, and takes pleasure in his company.
Possibly the fact that he cultivates so few friends makes of his lonely preferences a flattery. Then, too, loquacity is not invariably a brimming intellect’s overflow. It is better, on the whole, if one has very little to say, to keep that little in reserve for a rainy day. Too many of us, having the conceit of our inheritance, think that we, also, can feed a multitude on five loaves and a couple of fishes. But we must adulterate largely to do it.
Pamphilus, again, has the winning, persuasive “presence.” He is thirty-three, but still in his physical and mental attributes a big-eyed wondering boy. You can mention to him nothing so ordinary, but his eager “Yes? Yes?” startles you into trying to improve upon your subject with a touch of humour, a flower of observation, for his rare delectation. Is he worth the effort? You don’t know. You don’t know whether or not he wants you to think so, or is really instinctively greedy for the psychologic bonne bouche. He is tall, and spare, and interesting in appearance. In short, he lacks no charm but candour; and I am not sure but that the lack is not a fifth grace. He is, finally, “Valentine,” and the subject of this “Morality.”
It may have been a year ago that, coming silently into my rooms one night, Valentine “jumped” me, to my dignified annoyance. I hate being so taken off my guard. Generally, I hold it that a man’s consideration for his fellow-creatures’ nerves is the measure of his mental endowment. Valentine, however, does not, to do him justice, make these noiseless entrances to surprise one, so much as to entertain himself with one’s preoccupations. Mine, as it happened, was the evening paper.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, breathing the monosyllable suddenly over my shoulder, like an enlightened ghost. The characteristic note was, I supposed, in allusion to the paragraph which engaged my attention at the moment. It was headed “The Brompton Sleeping Girl.”
I started, of course; and, in the instant reaction of nerve, flew to an extreme of rudeness.
“Yes,” I drawled; “an interesting case, isn’t it? Supposing it had been a private letter, how long would you have stood before shouting your presence into my ear like that?”
He laughed as he moved away (he had not shouted at all, by the by); then, as he sat down opposite me in the shadow, appeared for the first time to realize my meaning.
“Just long enough to recognize the fact,” he said quietly. “What do you mean by the question?”
Thus rebounding, my own rudeness struck me ashamed. I had no real justification for the insult, anyhow that I could call into evidence.