that delicate things are literally not recognised. Now, we've
liked you--!" With which he hesitated a moment, laying his hand
gently on Goodwood's knee and smiling with a mixture of assurance
and embarrassment. "I'm going to say something extremely offensive
and patronising, but you must let me have the satisfaction of it.
We've liked you because--because you've reconciled us a little to
the future. If there are to be a certain number of people like
you--a la bonne heure! I'm talking for my wife as well as for
myself, you see. She speaks for me, my wife; why shouldn't I
speak for her? We're as united, you know, as the candlestick and
the snuffers. Am I assuming too much when I say that I think I've
understood from you that your occupations have been--a--
commercial? There's a danger in that, you know; but it's the way
you have escaped that strikes us. Excuse me if my little
compliment seems in execrable taste; fortunately my wife doesn't
hear me. What I mean is that you might have been--a--what I was
mentioning just now. The whole American world was in a conspiracy
to make you so. But you resisted, you've something about you that
saved you. And yet you're so modern, so modern; the most modern
man we know! We shall always be delighted to see you again."

I have said that Osmond was in good humour, and these remarks
will give ample evidence of the fact. They were infinitely more
personal than he usually cared to be, and if Caspar Goodwood had
attended to them more closely he might have thought that the
defence of delicacy was in rather odd hands. We may believe,
however, that Osmond knew very well what he was about, and that
if he chose to use the tone of patronage with a grossness not in
his habits he had an excellent reason for the escapade. Goodwood
had only a vague sense that he was laying it on somehow; he