Cutbill smiled; for, though he did not in the least know the quality ascribed to him, he was sure it was complimentary, and was satisfied.
“Then there was another point of difference between you. Hook was a snob. He had the uneasy consciousness of social inferiority, which continually drove him to undue familiarities. Now, I will say, I never met a man so free from this as yourself. I have made a positive study of you, Cutbill, and I protest I think, as regards tact, you are unrivalled.”
“I can only say, my Lord, that I never knew it.”
“After all,” said Lord Culduff, rising and standing with his back to the fire, while, dropping his eyelids, he seemed to fall into a reflective vein,—“after all, this, as regards worldly success, is the master quality. You may have every gift and every talent and every grace, and, wanting 'tact', they are all but valueless.”
Cutbill was silent. He was too much afraid to risk his newly acquired reputation by the utterance of even a word.
“How do you like Rome?” asked his Lordship, abruptly.
“I can scarcely say; I 've seen very little of it. I know nobody; and, on the whole, I find time hang heavily enough on me.”
“But you must know people, Cutbill; you must go out. The place has its amusing side; it's not like what we have at home. There's another tone, another style; there is less concentration, so to say, but there 's more 'finesse.'”
Cutbill nodded, as though he followed and assented to this.
“Where the priest enters, as such a considerable element of society, there is always a keener study of character than elsewhere. In other places you ask, What a man does? here you inquire, Why he does it?”