In Magdalen's situation all experiments of this sort would have been in
the last degree difficult and dangerous with any man. With the admiral
they were simply impossible. His tendency to veer about from one subject
to another; his habit of keeping his tongue perpetually going, so long
as there was anybody, no matter whom, within reach of the sound of his
voice; his comical want of all dignity and reserve with his servants,
promised, in appearance, much, and performed in reality nothing. No
matter how diffidently or how respectfully Magdalen might presume on her
master's example, and on her master's evident liking for her, the old
man instantly discovered the advance she was making from her proper
position, and instantly put her back in it again, with a quaint good
humor which inflicted no pain, but with a blunt straightforwardness
of purpose which permitted no escape. Contradictory as it may sound,
Admiral Bartram was too familiar to be approached; he kept the distance
between himself and his servant more effectually than if he had been the
proudest man in England. The systematic reserve of a superior toward an
inferior may be occasionally overcome--the systematic familiarity never.
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