One of them was the question of whether,
since he had been tested, he had passed. Did the artist drop him
from having made out that he wouldn't do? He really felt just to-day
that he might do better than usual. Hadn't he done well enough,
so far as that went, in being exactly so dazzled? and in not having
too, as he almost believed, wholly hidden from his host that he felt
the latter's plummet? Suddenly, across the garden, he saw little
Bilham approach, and it was a part of the fit that was on him that
as their eyes met he guessed also HIS knowledge. If he had said to
him on the instant what was uppermost he would have said: "HAVE I
passed?--for of course I know one has to pass here." Little Bilham
would have reassured him, have told him that he exaggerated, and
have adduced happily enough the argument of little Bilham's own
very presence; which, in truth, he could see, was as easy a one as
Gloriani's own or as Chad's. He himself would perhaps then after a
while cease to be frightened, would get the point of view for some
of the faces--types tremendously alien, alien to Woollett--that he
had already begun to take in. Who were they all, the dispersed
groups and couples, the ladies even more unlike those of Woollett
than the gentlemen?--this was the enquiry that, when his young
friend had greeted him, he did find himself making.
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