I felt the colour rising hotly to my face, but I endeavoured to appear unconcerned.
"You look," said Dr. Brayle, with a quick glance from his narrowly set eyes—"as if you had been through a happy experience."
"Perhaps I have!" I answered quietly—"It has certainly been a very happy day!" "What is your opinion of Santoris?" asked Mr. Harland, suddenly—"You've spent a couple of hours alone in his company,—you must have formed some idea."
I replied at once, without taking thought.
"I think him quite an exceptional man," I said—"Good and great-hearted,—and I fancy he must have gone through much difficult experience to make him what he is."
"I entirely disagree with you,"—said Dr. Brayle, quickly—"I've taken his measure, and I think it's a fairly correct one. I believe him to be a very clever and subtle charlatan, who affects a certain profound mysticism in order to give himself undue importance—"
There was a sudden clash. Mr. Harland had brought his clenched fist down upon the table with a force that made the glasses ring.
"I won't have that, Brayle!" he said, sharply—"I tell you I won't have it! Santoris is no charlatan—never was!—he won his honours at Oxford like a man—his conduct all the time I ever knew him was perfectly open and blameless—he did no mean tricks, and pandered to nothing base—and if some of us fellows were frightened of him (as we were) it was because he did everything better than we could do it, and was superior to us all. That's the truth!—and there's no getting over it. Nothing gives small minds a better handle for hatred than superiority—especially when that superiority is never asserted, but only felt."
"You surprise me,"—murmured Brayle, half apologetically—"I thought—"
"Never mind what you thought!" said Mr. Harland, with a sudden ugly irritation of manner that sometimes disfigured him—"Your thoughts are not of the least importance!"