. He continued to
scowl, and merely said: »Go on; what happened?«
    Mr. Keene allowed the evening's proceedings to lose nothing in his
narration. He was successful in exciting his hearer to wrath, but, to his
consternation, it was forthwith turned against himself.
    »And you tried to make things better by going about telling what several of
them would know perfectly well to be lies?« exclaimed Mutimer, savagely. »Who
the devil gave you authority to do so?«
    »My dear sir,« protested the journalist, »you have quite mistaken me. I did
not mean to admit that I had told lies. How could I for a moment suppose that a
man of your character would sanction that kind of thing? Pooh, I hope I know you
better! No, no; I merely in the course of conversation ventured to hint that, as
you yourself had explained to me, there were reasons quite other than the vulgar
mind would conceive for - for the course you had pursued. To my own apprehension
such reasons are abundant, and, I will add, most conclusive. You have not
endeavoured to explain them to me in detail; I trust you felt that I was not so
dull of understanding as to be incapable of - of appreciating motives when
sufficiently indicated. Situations of this kind are never to be explained
grossly; I mean, of course, in the case of men of intellect. I flatter myself
that I have come to know your ruling principles; and I will say that beyond a
doubt your behaviour has been most honourable. Of course I was mistaken in
trying to convey this to those I talked with last night; they misinterpreted me,
and I might have expected it. We cannot give them the moral feelings which they
lack. But I am glad that the error has so quickly come to light. A mere word
from you, and such a delusion goes no farther. I regret it extremely.«
    Mutimer held the letter in his hand, and kept looking from it to the
speaker. Keene's subtleties were not very intelligible to him, but, even with a
shrewd suspicion that he was being humbugged, he could not resist a sense of
pleasure in hearing himself classed with the superior men whose actions are not
to be explained by the vulgar. Nay, he asked himself whether the defence was not
in fact a just one. After all, was it not possible that his conduct had been
praiseworthy? He recovered the argument by which he had formerly tried to
silence disagreeable inner voices; a man in
