"It--I--you know what I mean, Hardinge.

To discuss her--herself, I mean--and here----" "Yes.

You are right," says Hardinge slowly, with, however, an irrepressible stare at the professor.

It is a prolonged stare.

He is very fond of Curzon, though knowing absolutely nothing about him beyond the fact that he is eminently likeable; and it now strikes him as strange that this silent, awkward, ill-dressed, clever man should be the one to teach him how to behave himself.