THE SENSE OF THE PAST
of answer. "Oh my dear man, I'll walk," he seemed to be saying; "I don't in the least mind your knowing that you've given me the fidgets or that I shall extremely need to think you over: which indulgence the use of my legs will healthily stimulate."
Something of that sort Ralph was much later on, as I say, to recover the appearance of his having found words for; just as he was to piece together the presumption that, the cabman paid, magnificently paid, and getting again into motion, he and his protector—for hadn't they after all rather exquisitely agreed to leave it at this?—stood face to face a little, under the prolongation of a handclasp; followed then by the mutual release that left his Excellency standing there on the pavement with the graver face of the two, he at least little doubted. Our young man was after that aware of a position of such eminence on the upper doorstep as made him, his fine rat-tat-tat-ah of the knocker achieved, see the whole world, the waiting, the wondering, the shrunkenly staring representative of his country included, far, far, in fact at last quite abysmally below him. Whether these had been rapid or rather retarded stages he was really never to make out. Everything had come to him through an increasingly thick other medium; the medium to which the opening door of the house gave at once an extension that was like an extraordinarily strong odour inhaled—
112
