What he might have shown, had he shown at all, was exactly the kind of emotion--the emotion of bewilderment--that he had proposed to himself from the first, whatever should occur, to show least.

The phenomenon that had suddenly sat down there with him was a phenomenon of change so complete that his imagination, which had worked so beforehand, felt itself, in the connexion, without margin or allowance.

It had faced every contingency but that Chad should not BE Chad, and this was what it now had to face with a mere strained smile and an uncomfortable flush.
He asked himself if, by any chance, before he should have in some way to commit himself, he might feel his mind settled to the new vision, might habituate it, so to speak, to the remarkable truth.

But oh it was too remarkable, the truth; for what could be more remarkable than this sharp rupture of an identity?
You could deal with a man as himself--you couldn't deal with him as somebody else.

It was a small source of peace moreover to be reduced to wondering how little he might know in such an event what a sum he was setting you.