THE SENSE OF THE PAST
The great reassurance just mentioned at any rate, and which ministered still more to surprise than to confidence, came from his somehow making out that Ralph Pendrel enjoyed an advantage beyond any he missed; had a manner, a look or a tone, some natural brightness, some undesigned but conciliatory art, which perceptibly paved his way and which perhaps, should he incline to presume upon it, might really gain him favour. This inference he had had, and without gross vanity, time to make—though arriving doubtless for the moment at no finer conclusion on it than that his spirits were all the while, beneath however small a bent to swagger or bluster, undiscourageably high, and that youth and good proportions, a clear face, a free hand and a brave errand, all borne on that tide, were capable of casting a spell of a sort that he should find occasion either to measure or to press. It had been odd assuredly to come thus soon to a thought of spells—especially in the midst of a consciousness of blunders; but it possibly reinforced a little even this degree of presumption that the very blunders, which might have been all to his confusion save that various other persons had promptly and obligingly, as it were, taken them over, appeared grandly imputable to the same spring of freshness. He couldn't deny to himself his eagerness—extraordinarily strong and which people made way for, to the extent even of a large margin,
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