"It may be that; the name doesn't matter; at all events he's embarrassed.

He wants not to be an ass on the one side and yet not some other kind of brute on the other." Mr.Longdon listened with consideration--with a beautiful little air indeed of being, in his all but finally benighted state, earnestly open to information on such points from a magnificent young man.

"He doesn't want, you mean, to be a coxcomb ?--and he doesn't want to be cruel ?" Vanderbank, visibly preoccupied, produced a faint kind smile.

"Oh you KNOW!" "I?
I should know less than any one." Mr.Longdon had turned away from the table on this, and the eyes of his companion, who after an instant had caught his meaning, watched him move along the room and approach another part of the divan.

The consequence of the passage was that Vanderbank's only rejoinder was presently to say: "I can't tell you how long I've imagined--have asked myself.