"
Slowly the flush and sparkle in Helen's face died away, and she looked
as quiet and as observant as usual.
"Five people?" she remarked. "I should say there were more than five."
"You've been very fortunate, then," said Hirst. "Or perhaps I've been
very unfortunate." He became silent.
"Should you say I was a difficult kind of person to get on with?" he
asked sharply.
"Most clever people are when they're young," Helen replied.
"And of course I am--immensely clever," said Hirst. "I'm infinitely
cleverer than Hewet. It's quite possible," he continued in his curiously
impersonal manner, "that I'm going to be one of the people who really
matter. That's utterly different from being clever, though one can't
expect one's family to see it," he added bitterly.
Helen thought herself justified in asking, "Do you find your family
difficult to get on with?"
"Intolerable. . . . They want me to be a peer and a privy councillor.
I've come out here partly in order to settle the matter. It's got to be
settled. Either I must go to the bar, or I must stay on in Cambridge. Of
course, there are obvious drawbacks to each, but the arguments certainly
do seem to me in favour of Cambridge. This kind of thing!" he waved his
hand at the crowded ballroom. "Repulsive. I'm conscious of great powers
of affection too. I'm not susceptible, of course, in the way Hewet
is.
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