rescue him without mortifying him? For, in spite of his denial on the stairway in Biskra, Laurence knew all the time that he, too, expected to "get something" out of Tinker. Was it then from a small man, a money worshipper, that he sought a rescue?
Olivia wished him to think of her father as the "new Roman"; she was pleased with that and wanted him to hear it. One thing was clear: she had adored her father even when she hated him; she had always adored him, and now she wanted this critic of him to admire him. Medjila's talk was really a message from her, and, seeing it in that light, Laurence was touched; there was something both whimsical and fond in what she had done. The fondness was for her father—and perhaps there was a little for the critic too; though he was well enough cured of fatuousness not to be sure. It wasn't fatuous, however, to be sure that she cared a little about what he thought, and since she wished him to think of her father as the "new Roman" But here Laurence again remembered "Mariar." He would have done anything within his power that Olivia wished him to do; but when he decided to be obedient and to think of the man who had sung "Mariar" as a Roman, he found he couldn't.
