"I see I'm an impression to you--and of course an extraordinary one; but he wasn't one to me," Ralph pursued, "in any such sense as that--for the interest of our relation, as you justly term it, is so much more interesting, you see, than any with which, even at the best, I can hope to inspire you. He was a man as substantial for me as I am--or as I _was!_" Ralph pulled up a moment to smile--"for myself; and interesting most of all, I suppose, because so extraordinarily interested." "Interested in _you?_" his host inquired as with the care to avoid alike too much or too little gravity. "Well, yes--interested in me by his being so possessed of the kind of thing that interests us both. I've been ridden all my life, I think I should tell you"--for our young man thought it but fair to develop this--"by the desire to cultivate some better sense of the past than has mostly seemed sufficient even for those people who have gone in most for cultivating it, and who with most complacency," Ralph permitted himself to add, "have put forth their results. So you can fancy what a charm it was," he wound up, "to catch a person, and a beautifully intelligent one, in the very act of cultivating----" The Ambassador was on his feet at this, with an effect of interruption, as by the very quickness of his apprehension. "His sense of the present!" he triumphantly smiled. But his visitor's smile reduced that felicity. "His sense of the future, don't you see?--which had at last declined to let him rest, just as my corresponding expression had declined to let me. Only after his being worried," Ralph's scruple explained, "nearly a century longer." "A century's a long time to be worried!" the Ambassador remarked through his smoke, but permitting himself this time a confession of amusement. "Oh a terrible time of course--but all leading up, you see, to this tremendous relief I've brought him. I've brought him, I've given him, I've introduced him to, the Future. So there we are!" Ralph gloried. His companion, though visibly impressed, appeared a little to wonder where indeed they were. Then this wonder found voice. "How could you bring him what you didn't have yourself?" Ralph needed but a moment to consider. "Why, I _am_ the Future. The Future, that is, for _him_; which means the Present, don't you see----?" "The Present, I see, for _me!_" his host, fairly flushed with divination, broke in. "Yes," Ralph promptly returned, "nothing could do more beautifully than your Present, not to say, literally, your presence, for the Future he has waited so long, poor dear chap, to know about." "What it comes to then," the Ambassador considered in all apparent sympathy--"what it comes to in fine," this functionary smoked, "is that I and my contemporaries _are_ his Future." Ralph accepted the conclusion. "It would come to that if he could get into relation with you."