Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/326

THE IVORY TOWER relevant connection: "Do you mind telling me if it's true—what I've heard a good deal affirmed—that there has been a question of an engagement between you and Miss Foy?—or that you are so interested in her that to see somebody else making up to her would be to you as a pang, an affront, a ground of contention or challenge or whatever?" I seem to see that, very much indeed; and by the same token to see Horton's straight denegation. I see Horton say emphatically No—and this for reasons quite conceivable in him, once one apprehends their connection with his wishing above all, beyond anything else that he at this moment wishes, to keep well with Gray. His denegation is plausible; Gray believes it and accepts it all the more that at the moment in question he wants to, in the interest of his own freedom of action. Accordingly the point I make is that when he in particular conditions finds them all unexpectedly and unmistakably "together", the discovery becomes for him doubly illuminating. I might even better say trebly; showing him in the very first place that Horton has lied to him, and thereby that Horton can lie. This very interesting and important—but also, in a strange way, "fascinating" to him. It shows in the second way how much Cissy is "thinking" of Horton, as well as he of her; and it shows in the last place, which makes it triple, how well Horton must think of the way his affairs are getting on that he can 312