He gave up calling at a
house where he was warmly appreciated, because father, mother,
daughter, bombarded him with questions. "I never came away without
feeling sure that I had in some way perjured myself."
On his shyness waited swiftly ensuing boredom; if his neighbour at
table were garrulous or banale, his face at once betrayed
conversational prostration; a lady who often watched him used to
say that his pulse ought to be felt after the first course; and
that if it showed languor he should be moved to the side of some
other partner. "He had great charm," writes to me another old
friend, "in a quiet winning way, but was 'dark' with rough and
noisy people." So it came to pass that his manner was threefold;
icy and repellent with those who set his nerves on edge; good-
humoured, receptive, intermittently responsive in general and
congenial company; while, at ease with friends trusted and beloved,
the lines of the face became gracious, indulgent, affectionate, the
sourire des yeux often inexpressibly winning and tender.
"Kinglake," says Eliot Warburton in his unpublished diary, "talked
to us to-day about his travels; pessimistic and cynical to the rest
of the world, he is always gentle and kind to us.
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