‘Yes, it would—’
‘But, suppose a thing:—suppose you knew that there was a secret; suppose you wanted very much to find it out, and yet would not try to find it out: wouldn’t that be another way of keeping it?’
‘Yes, it would. If I knew there was a secret, I should like to find it out.’
‘Well, I am going to try you. There is a secret. I know it; you do not. You have a right to know it some day, but not yet. I mean to tell it you, but I want you to learn a great deal first. I want to keep the secret from hurting you. Just as you would keep things from a baby which would hurt him, I have kept some things from you.’
‘Is the sword one of them, uncle?’ I asked.
‘You could not do anything with the secret if you did know it,’ my uncle went on, without heeding my question; ‘but there may be designing people who would make a tool of you for their own ends. It is far better you should be ignorant. Now will you keep my secret?—or, in other words, will you trust me?’ I felt a little frightened. My imagination was at work on the formless thing. But I was chiefly afraid of the promise—lest I should anyway break it.
‘I will try to keep the secret—keep it from myself, that is—ain’t it, uncle?’
‘Yes. That is just what I mean.’
‘But how long will it be for, uncle?’
‘I am not quite sure. It will depend on how wise and sensible you grow. Some boys are men at eighteen—some not at forty. The more reasonable and well-behaved you are, the sooner shall I feel at liberty to tell it you.’