ould like to be able to look long at a person, who said something of
which I disapproved, and then change the subject. That would be fine! But I
daren't do that now. Now I have to argue. Do you remember in _Daniel
Deronda_, Grandcourt's habit of looking stonily at smiling persons. I
have often envied that! Whereas my chief function in life is looking
smilingly at stony persons, and that's very bourgeois."

"We must show more animation," said Barthrop to his neighbour.

"I mean it!" said Father Payne, "but come, I won't be personal! Seriously,
you know, the one thing I have admired in the very few great people I have
ever met is the absence of embarrassment. They don't need to explain who
they are, they haven't got to preface their statements of opinion by
fragments of autobiography, to show their right to speak. It is convenient
to feel that if people don't know who you are, they will feel slightly
foolish afterwards when they discover, like the man who shook hands warmly
with Queen Victoria, and said, "I know the face quite well, but I can't put
a name to it." It did not show any pride of birth in the Queen to be
extremely amused by the incident. But even more than that I admire the case
which people of that sort get by having had, from childhood onwards, to
meet all sorts of persons, and to behave themselves, and to see that people
do not feel shy or uncomfortable. I sometimes go about the village simply
teeming with benevolence, and I pass some one, and can't think of anything
to say. If I had the great manner, I should say, "Why, Tommy, is that you?"
or some such human signal, which would not mean anything in particular, but
would after all express exactly what is in my mind. But I can't just do
that. I rack my brains for an _appropriate_ remark, because I am
bourgeois, and have not the point of honour, as the French say. And by the
time I have elaborated it, Tommy is gone, and Jack is passing, and I begin
elaborating again; whereas I should simply add, if I were aristocratic,
'And that's you, Jack, isn't it?' That's the way to talk."

We all laughed; and Barthrop said, "Well, I must say, Father, that I have
often envied you your power of saying something to everyone."

"I have spent more trouble on it than it is worth," said Father Payne; "and
that's my point, that if I were only a great man, I should have learnt it
all in childhood, and should not have to waste time over it at all. That's
the best of rank; it's a