"Yes; and so, with all this complication on his hands, the professor is hunting for a new assistant."
This time, Brenton looked at him keenly.
"Are you telling that fact to me, for any especial reason, doctor?" he demanded.
"Yes, to my shame, I am. By good rights, Brenton, I ought to order you into a sanatorium, until you get over the desire to make an idiot of yourself. I doubt, though, if it would do any good. I fancy that your case is chronic, that you won't be happy till you've muddled your intellectual salvation according to your own notions. If that's the fact, the sooner you go about it, the better. Your hanging on at Saint Peter's is only so much wear and tear upon your nerves. Ours, too, when it comes to that. One doesn't get much sanctification out of a sermon couched in glittering generalities and delivered by a rector with a crumpled brow. Therefore the trustee of the college has told tales to the doctor, and the doctor is hinting the gist of those tales to his patient."
"Do you think I'd fill the place?" Brenton's voice surprised himself by its unwonted quivering of eagerness.
"Depends on whether you get the chance," the doctor parried. "Moreover, your getting the chance depends on what you think about your taking it. There's another man talked about for the position; but I have a good deal of say in the matter, and Opdyke has more. He considers you rather a genius in his line, a wasted genius, and would jump at a chance to have you put in under him as instructor. What do you think?"
Brenton's reply came without an instant's hesitation.
"I will take it, if it's offered me."
"You know it will shut Saint Peter's door to you for ever? In a case like this, one can't go back again."
"I know," Brenton made brief assent.