“A very efficient young man. He has that air.”
“He has. But not really very clever, you know. It's largely put on.... I'm told. He likes to seem to know everything ... so I've heard.”
“A common peccadillo.” The ex-cardinal waved it aside with a large and tolerant gesture. “But we do not, most of us, succeed in it.”
“Oh, Wilbraham doesn't succeed. Indeed no. Most people see at once that he is just a solemn ass. That face, you know ... like a mushroom....”
“Ah, that is a Bernard Shaw phrase. A bad play, that, but excellent dialogue.... But he is good-looking, Mr. Wilbraham.”
Henry moodily supposed that he was. “In a sort of smug, cold way,” he admitted.
“E cosa fa tra questo bel giovanotto e quel Charles Wilbraham?” wondered the ex-cardinal, within himself.