begun to see, so that what he had hitherto done was a movement without a direction. He had ripened too late, and was so clumsily constituted that he had had to teach himself by mistakes.
"I prefer your flowers, then, to other people's fruit, and your mistakes to other people's successes," said gallant Dr. Hugh. "It's for your mistakes I admire you."
"You're happy—you don't know," Dencombe answered.
Looking at his watch the young man had got up; he named the hour of the afternoon at which he would return. Dencombe warned him against committing himself too deeply, and expressed again all his dread of making him neglect the countess—perhaps incur her displeasure.
"I want to be like you—I want to learn by mistakes!" Dr. Hugh laughed.
"Take care you don't make too grave a one! But do come back," Dencombe added, with the glimmer of a new idea.
"You should have had more vanity!" Dr. Hugh spoke as if he knew the exact amount required to make a man of letters normal.
"No, no—I only should have had more time. I want another go."
"Another go?"
"I want an extension."
" An extension?" Again Dr. Hugh repeated Dencombe's words, with which he seemed to have been struck.
