"Wait, you will see. If a man is master of his business, and has self-assertion to make the world cringe before his force, that is all that is necessary. A man is either like leaven or like meal: he leavens or is leavened. The chief thing about any animal is its amount of available vigour. How much of Sun-fire has the man in him?—that is the question. If he has only enough, he can wash the world in his flush, and also if he is taught in what fashion to use it. But this Dr Burton, I assure you, he is not a paltry man. I want you to present me—now."
"I?" I said, taken rather aback, "I don't know him."
But at once Langler said at my ear: "I do."
"Mr Langler, however," I added, "probably knows him."
At this the baron said, half rising: "Ah, then——," and Langler stood up quickly, saying: "with pleasure...."
Dr Burton had now parted from Mr Edwards, and was passing close by us, wrapped in gloom, his frock brabbling at every stalk with the breeze; so Langler hurried out to get at him, and Baron Kolár goaded after Langler his rolling gait.
At this Dr Burton, as when a bull stops in its career to stare at some new object, stood still, and at once Langler said graciously to him: "Dr Burton, permit me to present to you my friend, Mr Templeton—his Excellency Baron Kolár—Dr Burton."
The moment which followed was full of misery: for one could not tell what the doctor, still heated, would say or do. I was afraid that he wouldn't shake hands!
But the baron, with instant tact, spoke. "It was I," he said, "who asked Mr Langler to present me to Dr Burton. I had the pleasure last Sunday of being in the church at Ritching: that will explain."
At some moments, when he ceased to show his teeth and measured one with a stern up-and-down movement of the eyes, this man's face took on an expression of power which could even become compelling; so he looked now, eyeing Dr Burton, measuring him from head to toe, till Dr Burton put out his hand, whereupon the baron pipped a nothing sideways, and showed his teeth.