"Known, George."
"Would you mind telling me how?"
"It would be a pleasure to point out to you," Wandel drawled, "that a lot of people aren't half as big fools as you've credited them with being. You looked a little what you were at first. You've probably forgotten that when you matriculated you put down a place of residence, a record easily available for one who saw, as I did, means of using you. Even a fool could have guessed something was up the night Betty was good enough to make herself a part of the beau monde. I gathered a lot from Lambert then."
"Yet," George said, almost indifferently, "you went on being a friend."
"Your political manager, George," Wandel corrected. "I'm not sure it would have gone much further if it hadn't been for Dicky."
George was thoroughly aroused at last.
"Did Dicky know?"
"Not mere facts," Wandel answered. "What difference did they make? But he could see what you had started from, how great the climb you were taking. That's why he liked and admired you, because of what you were, not because of what you wanted people to think you were. That's really what first attracted me to you, and it amused me to see you fancying you were getting away with so much more than you really were."
"Extraordinary!" George managed. "Then the heights are not so well guarded?"
"Ah, yes—guarded," Wandel said, "but not against great men."