She would answer him probably: "Oh, you know, it's what we expect you to be!" on which he would have no resource but to deny his knowledge.

Would that break the spell, his saying he had no idea?
What idea in fact could he have?
He also took himself seriously--made a point of it; but it wasn't simply a question of fancy and pretension.
His own estimate he saw ways, at one time and another, of dealing with: but theirs, sooner or later, say what they might, would put him to the practical proof.

As the practical proof, accordingly, would naturally be proportionate to the cluster of his attributes, one arrived at a scale that he was not, honestly, the man to calculate.

Who but a billionaire could say what was fair exchange for a billion?
That measure was the shrouded object, but he felt really, as his cab stopped in Cadogan Place, a little nearer the shroud.

He promised himself, virtually, to give the latter a twitch.
II "They're not good days, you know," he had said to Fanny Assingham after declaring himself grateful for finding her, and then, with his cup of tea, putting her in possession of the latest news--the documents signed an hour ago, de part et d'autre, and the telegram from his backers, who had reached Paris the morning before, and who, pausing there a little, poor dears, seemed to think the whole thing a tremendous lark.