Obenreizer? (I won't ask you what you think of Miss Obenreizer.)"
"I don't know," said Vendale, "and I never did know, what to think of
him."
"He is well informed and clever," said Wilding.
"Certainly clever."
"A good musician." (He had played very well, and sung very well,
overnight.)
"Unquestionably a good musician."
"And talks well."
"Yes," said George Vendale, ruminating, "and talks well. Do you know,
Wilding, it oddly occurs to me, as I think about him, that he doesn't
keep silence well!"
"How do you mean? He is not obtrusively talkative."
"No, and I don't mean that. But when he is silent, you can hardly help
vaguely, though perhaps most unjustly, mistrusting him. Take people whom
you know and like. Take any one you know and like."
"Soon done, my good fellow," said Wilding. "I take you."
"I didn't bargain for that, or foresee it," returned Vendale, laughing.
"However, take me. Reflect for a moment. Is your approving knowledge of
my interesting face mainly founded (however various the momentary
expressions it may include) on my face when I am silent?"
"I think it is," said Wilding.
"I think so too. Now, you see, when Obenreizer speaks--in other words,
when he is allowed to explain himself away--he comes out right enough;
but when he has not the opportunity of explaining himself away, he comes
out rather wrong. Therefore it is, that I say he does not keep silence
well. And passing hastily in review such faces as I know, and don't
trust, I am inclined to think, now I give my mind to it, that none of
them keep silence well.
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