“Hullo, are you going to condescend to speak to me after the brick I dropped in Venner’s?” asked Maurice bitterly.
“I wish you wouldn’t be so theatrically sarcastic,” complained Michael, who was half-unconsciously pursuing the simile which lately Lonsdale had found for Maurice’s behavior.
“Well, why on earth,” Maurice broke out, “it should be funny when Venner tells a story about some old St. Mary’s man and yet be”—he paused, evidently too vain, thought Michael a little cruelly, to stigmatize himself—“and yet be considered contrary to what is done when I tell a story about myself, I don’t quite know, I must admit.”
“It was the introduction of the personal element which made everybody feel uncomfortable,” said Michael. “Venner’s tale had acquired the impersonality of a legend.”
“Oh, god, Michael, you do talk rot sometimes!” said Maurice fretfully. “It’s nothing on earth but offensive and very youthful priggishness.”
“I wonder if I sounded like you,” said Michael, “when I talked rather like you at about seventeen.”
Maurice spluttered with rage at this, and Michael saw it would be useless to remonstrate with him reasonably. He blamed himself for being so intolerant and for not having with kindlier tact tried to point out why he had made a mistake; and yet with all his self-reproach he could not rid himself of what was something very near to active dislike of Maurice at that moment.
But Maurice went on, unperceiving.
“I hate this silly pretense up here—and particularly at St. Mary’s—that nobody ever looks at a woman. It’s nothing but infernal hypocrisy. Upon my soul, I’m glad I’m going down this term. I really couldn’t have stood another year, playing with the fringe of existence. It seems to me, Michael, if you’re sincere in this attitude of yours, you’ll have a very dismal waking up from your dream. As for all the others, I don’t count them. I’m sick of this schoolboy cant. Castleton’s worth everybody else in this college put together. He was wonderful with that hulking fellow who came banging at the door of our digs. I wonder what you’d have done, if you’d been digging with me.”
“Probably just what Castleton did,” said Michael coldly. “You evidently weren’t at home. Now I must go and work. So long.”