He was deferential, eager to please, nervous of rebuke, and almost servile, for he had found his hero in that tremendous personality.

He pulled out his papers now, shook them out briskly, and was soon explaining, marking and erasing.

Cromwell leaned back in his corner and listened, putting in a word of comment now and again, or dotting down a note on the back of a letter, and watching Ralph with a pleasant, oblique look, for he liked to see his people alert and busy.

But he knew very well what his demeanour was like at other times, and had at first indeed been drawn to the young man by his surprising insolence of manner and impressive observant silences.
"That is very well, Mr.Torridon," he said.

"I will see to the license.
Put them all away." Ralph obeyed, and then sat back too, silent indeed, but with a kind of side-long readiness for the next subject; but Cromwell spoke no more of business for the present, only uttering short sentences about current affairs, and telling his friend the news.
"Frith has been burned," he said.