Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/262

THE IVORY TOWER or whatever, a distinction for which a companion might care, but for which he himself didn't with any sincerity, and then to give his own side of it away, from the moment doubt had been determined, with an almost desolating sweep of surrender. His own side of it was by that logic no better a side, in a beastly vulgar world, than any other, and if anyone wanted to mean that such a mundane basis was deficient why he himself had but meant it from the first and pretended something else only not to be too shocking. He was ready to mean the worst—was ready for anything, that is, in the interest of ceasing from humbug. And if Gray was prepared for that then il ne s'agissait que de s'entendre. What Gray was prepared for would really take, this young man frankly opined, some threshing out; but it wasn't at all in readiness for the worst that he had come to America—he had come on the contrary to indulge, by God's help, in appreciations, comparisons, observations, reflections and other luxuries, that were to minister, fond old prejudice aiding, to life at the high pitch, the pitch, as who should say, of immortality. If on occasion, under the dazzle of Horton's facility, he might ask himself how he tracked through it the silver thread of sincerity—consistency wasn't pretended to—something at once supervened that was better than any answer, some benefit of information that the circumstance required, of judgment 248