“That’s exactly what he isn’t,” Michael contradicted.
“Damnable poseur,” Wedderburn rumbled.
“Oh, well, so are you,” said Michael.
He thought how willfully Wedderburn would persist in misjudging Avery. Yet himself had spent most delightful hours with him. To be sure, his sensitiveness made him sharp-tongued, and he dressed rather too well. But all the Carthusians at St. Mary’s dressed rather too well and carried about with them the atmosphere of a week-end in a sporting country-house owned by very rich people. This burbling prosperity would gradually trickle away, Michael thought, and he began to follow the course of Avery four years hence directed by Oxford to—to what? To some distinguished goal of art, but whether as writer or painter or sculptor he did not know, Avery was so very versatile. Michael mentally put him on one side to decorate a conspicuous portion of the ideal edifice he dreamed of creating from his Oxford society. There was Lonsdale. Lonsdale really possessed the serene perfection of a great work of art. Michael thought to himself that almost he could bear to attend for ever Ardle’s dusty lectures on Cicero in order that for ever he might hear Lonsdale admit with earnest politeness that he had not found time to glance at the text the day before, that he was indeed sorry to cause Mr. Ardle such a mortification, but that unfortunately he had left his Plato in a sadler’s shop, where he had found it necessary to complain of a saddle newly made for him.
“But I am lecturing on Cicero, Mr. Lonsdale. The Pro Milone was not delivered by Plato, Mr. Lonsdale.”
“What’s he talking about?” Lonsdale whispered to Michael.
“Nor was it delivered by Mr. Fane,” added the Senior Tutor dryly.
Lonsdale looked at first very much alarmed by this suggestion, then seeing by the lecturer’s face that something was still wrong, he assumed a puzzled expression, and finally in an attempt to relieve the situation he laughed very heartily and said:
“Oh, well, after all, it’s very much the same.” Then, as everybody else laughed very loudly, Lonsdale sat down and leaned back, pulling up his trousers in gentle self-congratulation.
“Rum old buffer,” he whispered presently to Michael. “His eye gets very glassy when he looks at me. Do you think I ought to ask him to lunch?”