I seemed to feel that if I broached them, I should be checked--politely, but very definitely.

Perhaps he actually contrived to convey as much to me; perhaps I evolved the idea that if I were to say: "What do you think about the 'Greenland System'"-- he would answer: "I try not to think about it," or whatever gently closuring phrase his mind conceived.

But I never did so; there were so many other topics.
He was then writing his _Life of Cromwell_ and his mind was very full of his subject.

Once he opened his heart, after delicately sounding me for signs of boredom.

It happened, by the merest chance--one of those blind chances that inevitably lead in the future--that I, too, was obsessed at that moment by the Lord Oliver.