But Sir Hamilton did not seem so sure the performance was over. "Half a minute more, L-Lady Ancester," said he; and he again half-stumbled over her name. "I am rather slow in expressing myself, but I have something I want to say."
"I am not in a hurry."
"I can only do exactly what you have asked me to do—place the case before my son as you have placed it before me."
"I have not asked for anything else."
"Well, then, I can do that, after I have talked over it with his mother. But I can't ... I can't undertake to influence him."
"Is he so intractable?... However, young men are."
"I did not mean that. I ... I don't exactly know how to say it...."
"Why should you hesitate to say what you were going to say?... Do you suppose I don't know what it was?" For he had begun to anticipate it with some weakening reservation. "I could tell you exactly. You were going to say, was it right to influence young people's futures and so on, and wasn't it taking a great responsibility, and so on? Now, were you not?"
"I had some such thought."
"Exactly. You mean you thought what I said you thought."