Page:The Outcry (London, Methuen & Co., 1911).djvu/307

Rh "Naturally you had!"—the girl hung on him for it; "and what was happening beyond everything else was that for your original dear divination, one of the divinations of genius—with every creature all these ages so stupid—you were being baptised on the spot a great man."

"Well, he did let poor Pappendick have it at least—he doesn't think he's one: that that eminent judge couldn't, even with such a leg up, rise to my level or seize my point. And if you really want to know," Hugh went on in his gladness, "what for us has most particularly and preciously taken place, it is that in his opinion, for my career"

"Your reputation," she cried, "blazes out and your fortune's made?"

He did a happy violence to his modesty. "Well, Bardi adores intelligence and takes off his hat to me."

"Then you need take off yours to nobody!"—such was Lady Grace's proud opinion. "But I should like to take off mine to him," she added; "which I seem to have put on—to get out and away with you—expressly for that."