'Come, by all means. You had better come to my rooms; there will be less interruption than at the lodge. I can give you four hours a week, but it must be in the afternoon. When will you begin?'
Lucy was quite ready to begin at once. She settled to go to the Tutor's rooms the very next day. She didn't even think of consulting Cousin Mary about the arrangement, or the Master, or the Master's wife. She had already made a distinct advance; she had decided for herself; she had engaged a University coach, and arranged to spend four hours a week alone with him in his college rooms. The woman of the future could not do more.
BEHIND THE SCREEN.
Lucy went to her coach the next day. She ought to have known her way about a college staircase by this time, but she had never yet penetrated beyond the outer courts. She had never ventured up those mysterious stairways sacred to gyps, bed-makers and gownsmen.
A great many gownsmen must have climbed the stairs that led to Mr. Colville's rooms before her; they had left their marks here, if they had left them nowhere else in the annals of the University. Mr. Colville's rooms were in the oldest part of the college, and his staircase was as narrow and steep and dark as any lover of mediæval architecture could desire.
It was so dark that when Lucy reached the first landing she didn't see where to go; there was a passage in front of her and doors on either side. Instead of looking at the names painted over the doors, she went down the passage and knocked at the door at the end.