Page:The Inheritors, An Extravagant Story.djvu/116

 and it struck me that he had some of the same feeling. He had little personal quaintnesses, too, a deference, a modesty, an open-mindedness.

I was with him for the greater part of his weekend holiday; hung, perforce, about him whenever he had any leisure. I suppose he found me tiresome—but one has to do these things. He talked, and I talked; heavens, how we talked! He was almost always deferential, I almost always dogmatic; perhaps because the conversation kept on my own ground. Politics we never touched. I seemed to feel that if I broached them, I should be checked—politely, but very definitely. Perhaps he actually contrived to convey as much to me; perhaps I evolved the idea that if I were to say:

"What do you think about the 'Greenland System'"—he would answer:

"I try not to think about it," or whatever gently closuring phrase his mind conceived. But I never did so; there were so many other topics.

He was then writing his Life of Cromwell and his mind was very full of his subject. Once he opened his heart, after delicately sounding me for