Yet all the time he lacked confidence in himself. The word charlatan clung to him like a pestilential memory. His hair was cropped close to his head. He had shaved off his moustache. He imitated almost slavishly the attire and bearing of those young men of fashion with whom he was brought into contact. Yet he was somehow conscious of a difference. The women seemed never to notice it—the men always. Was it jealousy, he wondered, which made them, even the most unintelligent, treat him with a certain tolerance, as though he were a person not quite of themselves, whom they scarcely understood, but were willing to make the best of?
With women it was different always. His encounter with Pauline Marrabel at the conversazione had given him the keenest pleasure. He had at once fixed a day sometime ahead upon which he would take to her the books he had spoken of. The day had arrived at last, but he had first another engagement. Early in the afternoon he turned into Kensington Gardens, and walked up and down the broad path, glancing every now and then toward one of the entrances. He saw at last the person for whom he was waiting.
Lois, in a plain white muslin gown, and a big hat gay with flowers, came blithely towards him, a little Pomeranian under one arm, and a parasol in the other hand.
“I do hope I’m not too dreadfully late!” she exclaimed, setting the dog down, and taking his hand a little shyly. “It seems such an age since I saw you last. Where can we go and talk?”
“You are not frightened at me any more, then?”
“Of course not,” she answered. “We spoke about that at Beauleys. I do not want to think any more of that evening. It is over and done with. What a clever person you are becoming!” she went on. “I saw your name one day last week in the Morning Post. You read a paper before no end of clever men. And do you know that your photograph is in two or three of the illustrated papers this week?”
His cheeks flushed with pleasure. He was unreasonably glad that she appreciated these things. His vanity, which had been a trifle ruffled by some incident earlier in the day, was effectually soothed.
“These things,” he said, “are absolutely valueless to me except so far as they testify to the importance of my work. Before long,” he went on, “I think that there will be many other people like you, Miss Lois. They will believe that there is a little more in life than their dull eyes can see. You were one of those who understood from the first. But there are not many.”
She sighed.