our to me to be permitted to do so.

"I hope," he added, "that you will visit Oxbridge again, and that you
will then renew an acquaintance which, though accidental in its origin,
has none the less impressed me--er--very much."

After his departure Willie became hilarious and I became very angry
with him. He persisted that everything was all right. I had put up a
fine performance and had only to continue it. The Dean would no doubt
write to me at Grosvenor Square, and Willie assured me that he had his
father's butler on a string, and that the butler sorted the letters. I
would receive the Dean's epistles at any address I would give him, and
would reply on the Grosvenor Square notepaper.

"I've got chunks of it in a writing-case at my rooms," he said, "and
I'll send it round to you."

I had to consent to this. However, the next day I skipped for London,
somewhat to the disappointment of the restaurant that I adorned, and
still more to the disappointment of Willie. But, as I wrote to him, he
had brought it on himself. I could not take the risk of another
accidental meeting with Dr. Benger Horlick.

Nor, as a matter of fact, did we ever meet again. But for three years we
corresponded with some frequency; it was a thin-ice, high-wire business,
but I pulled it through.

No doubt the task was made easier for me by the fact that the Dean was a
singularly simple-minded man. Reverence for the aristocracy had become
with him almost a religion. When he was brought--or believed himself to
be brought--in contact with the aristocracy, his intellectual vision
closed in a swoon of ecstasy. Snob? Oh, dear, no! Of course not. What
can have made you think that? It was simply that the aristocracy
appealed to him very much as romance did--he was outside it, but liked
to get a near view.

The G.E. found that letters, however delightful, bored her when they
were scattered through a biography. For that reason she gave one set of
letters all together. I do not see myself why, if a thing bores you when
you get a little of it at a time, it should bore you less when you get a
lot of it. But, determined to follow my brilliant model with simple
faith and humility, I now append extracts from the letters I received
from Dr. Benger Horlick.

"I wish I could persuade you to be less precise in your language.
If you say what your opinion is, you should take care to be
beautiful but unintelligible. Commit yourself to nothing. Words