It sets London laughing at me, his political chief.

He knew me well enough to be sure I would not resent it.

He would have lampooned his grandmother, if he was sure she would not, or could not, hurt him.

Then he becomes more audacious.

He publishes a monograph on the painters of Spain, artificial, confident, rhetorical, acute: as fascinating as a hide-and-seek drawing-room play--he is so cleverly escaping from his ignorance and indiscretions all the while.