Hadn't he done well enough, so far as that went, in being exactly so dazzled?
and in not having too, as he almost believed, wholly hidden from his host that he felt the latter's plummet?
Suddenly, across the garden, he saw little Bilham approach, and it was a part of the fit that was on him that as their eyes met he guessed also HIS knowledge.

If he had said to him on the instant what was uppermost he would have said: "HAVE I passed ?--for of course I know one has to pass here." Little Bilham would have reassured him, have told him that he exaggerated, and have adduced happily enough the argument of little Bilham's own very presence; which, in truth, he could see, was as easy a one as Gloriani's own or as Chad's.

He himself would perhaps then after a while cease to be frightened, would get the point of view for some of the faces--types tremendously alien, alien to Woollett--that he had already begun to take in.

Who were they all, the dispersed groups and couples, the ladies even more unlike those of Woollett than the gentlemen ?--this was the enquiry that, when his young friend had greeted him, he did find himself making.
"Oh they're every one--all sorts and sizes; of course I mean within limits, though limits down perhaps rather more than limits up.

There are always artists--he's beautiful and inimitable to the cher confrere; and then gros bonnets of many kinds--ambassadors, cabinet ministers, bankers, generals, what do I know?
even Jews.