He does n't call himself anything?
Well, that 's exactly like Gordon! I wonder he consents to have a name at all.

When I was telling some one about the young men who work under his orders--the young savants--he said I must not say that--I must not speak of their working 'under his orders.' I don't know what he would like me to say! Under his inspiration!" During the hours of Gordon's absence, Bernard had frequent colloquies with his friend's wife, whose irresponsible prattle amused him, and in whom he tried to discover some faculty, some quality, which might be a positive guarantee of Gordon's future felicity.

But often, of course, Gordon was an auditor as well; I say an auditor, because it seemed to Bernard that he had grown to be less of a talker than of yore.
Doubtless, when a man finds himself united to a garrulous wife, he naturally learns to hold his tongue; but sometimes, at the close of one of Blanche's discursive monologues, on glancing at her husband just to see how he took it, and seeing him sit perfectly silent, with a fixed, inexpressive smile, Bernard said to himself that Gordon found the lesson of listening attended with some embarrassments.

Gordon, as the years went by, was growing a little inscrutable; but this, too, in certain circumstances, was a usual tendency.

The operations of the mind, with deepening experience, became more complex, and people were less apt to emit immature reflections at forty than they had been in their earlier days.