The Senior Tutor, as he walked by Lucy's side, was thinking how he should change all this by-and-by. He would cut down those useless old trees, and he would have the turf rolled and laid out for tennis. Nothing could be better for Lucy than tennis, and she could invite her Newnham friends. Those old flower borders should be all dug up, and some standard rose-trees planted. He would have nothing but first-rate sorts, the very latest. He would do away with that vulgar cabbage rose in the corner, and that poor, shabby little pale blush that hung in clusters on the wall. It had hung there for so many years; it was quite time it should be cleared away. It seemed a pity to lose time. There were so many improvements to be made; it seemed a pity not to begin now.
Looking across the grass and the sunshine at the old stooping figure under the walnut-tree—it was bent more than usual to-day—he could not but feel that the time was not far off when it would be there no longer. There was nothing pathetic in the sight to him. He had waited for the place—the Master's place—so long. If he waited much longer he would be feeble and old and white-haired, too.
There is little pathos in the young. The sad realities of life touch only those who know something about them. One must have suffered one's self to have any sympathy with suffering.
Lucy, looking across the sunshine, was touched, in spite of herself, at the group under the walnut-tree. It didn't affect her as it affected the Tutor. It would be no gain to her if the old Master were to die; it would mean loss and change and being driven out again homeless into the wide world.
But it was not this consideration that moved her. She was touched by the tender picture of the two brave, patient old souls sitting hand-in-hand in that calm closing evening of their life.
Here was a love that Lucy knew nothing about—a love that had weathered all the storms of life, and was burning brightly at its close. Riches and honour and learning were nothing to it. They were the Master's still, but they were nothing beside love. He would leave these behind him, but love would cling to him out of time. He wouldn't shake that off when he shook off everything else.
Lucy didn't put the idea into words, but it touched her; and then, strangely enough, rose up before her the face of the man who had sat on the last seat in the chapel and had caught her looking at him. It was quite ridiculous to think of Wyatt Edgell at such a moment; there was nothing here to remind her of him.
There was an old disused greenhouse at the end of the Fellows' garden. Nothing had grown in it for years. A neglected vine was dropping down from the roof in one corner, and a great deal of the glass was broken, and the woodwork was decayed and rotting. The Tutor shook the door as he passed, and it opened, and he paused and looked in.
'I think we must have this place rebuilt,' he said, thinking aloud. 'You would like a greenhouse. We must get some ferns and palms and foliage plants. Do you like foliage plants?'