I know what that is, and I'd wanted to jolly him along a bit. When
he said his name was Mount Dunstan, and the place belonged to him,
I guessed he thought he was making a joke. So I got on my wheel and
started off, and then he got mad for keeps. He said he wasn't such a
damned fool as he looked, and what he'd said was true, and I could go
and be hanged."
Reuben S. Vanderpoel laughed. He liked that. It sounded like decent
British hot temper, which he had often found accompanied honest British
decencies.
He liked other things, as the story proceeded. The picture of the huge
house with the shut windows, made him slightly restless. The concealed
imagination, combined with the financier's resentment of dormant
interests, disturbed him. That which had attracted Selden in the
Reverend Lewis Penzance strongly attracted himself. Also, a man was a
good deal to be judged by his friends. The man who lived alone in the
midst of stately desolateness and held as his chief intimate a high-bred
and gentle-minded scholar of ripe years, gave, in doing this, certain
evidence which did not tell against him. The whole situation meant
something a splendid, vivid-minded young creature might be moved
by--might be allured by, even despite herself.
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