"You'll tell me then in the morning that you've laid me bare?"
"I'll see what I can do; I'll sleep on it. But just one word more," I added. We had left the room—I walked again with him a few steps along the passage. "This extraordinary general intention, as you call it—for that's the most vivid description I can induce you to make of it—is then generally a sort of buried treasure?"
His face lighted. "Yes, call it that, though it's perhaps not for me to do so."
"Nonsense!" I laughed. "You know you're hugely proud of it."
"Well, I didn't propose to tell you so; but it is the joy of my soul!"
"You mean it's a beauty so rare, so great?"
He hesitated a moment. "The loveliest thing in the world!" We had stopped, and on these words he left me; but at the end of the corridor, while I looked after him rather yearningly, he turned and caught sight of my puzzled face. It made him earnestly, indeed I thought quite anxiously, shake his head and wave his finger. "Give it up—give it up!"
This wasn't a challenge—it was fatherly
