“Isn’t he? And always wishes one to know it, too.” 

 “Aha! Then the Baronet is the man?” 

 “How absurd you are! Do you value your friends by preference? Nobody is the man, as you call it. Because I don’t much like Mr. Bickerdike, it doesn’t follow that I particularly like anybody else.” 

 “Why don’t you like him?” 

 “I don’t know. Perhaps because he likes himself too much.” 

 “Conceited, is he?” 

 “Not quite that: a first-rate prig I should call him—always wanting to appear cleverer than he really is.” 

 “Isn’t he clever?” 

 “O, yes! Clever after a sort; but frightfully obtuse, too. I wouldn’t trust him with a secret. He’s so cocksure of himself that he’d always be liable to give it away with his blessing. But I oughtn’t to speak like that of him. He’s a great friend of Hugh’s, and he does really like to help people, I think, only it must be in his own way and not theirs. Do you like him?” 

 “I am rather surprised that he and your brother should be on such close terms of friendship.” 

 “Are you? Why?” 

 “Is not Mr. Hugo, now, without offence, a rather passionate, self-willed young gentleman?” 

 “Very, I should say.” 

 “Balance and instability—there you are.” 

 “You mean they are not at all alike. I should have thought that was the best reason in the world for their chumming. One of oneself is quite enough for most people. Fancy the horror of being a Siamese twin!” 

 “Is that why you and Sir Francis are on such good terms—because there is nothing in common between you?” 

 “Isn’t there? What, for instance.” 

 “He presents himself to me, from what little I have seen and heard of him, as a rather gentle, spiritual young man, with a taste for books and the fine arts, and a preference in sport, if any, for 

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