“Reggie, is dear Reggie up here? How delightful! I remember him six or seven years ago. He was like one of Raphael’s angels.”
“What-was-it-that-George-Meredith-said?” asked the incoherent man, all in one word.
“One of Raphael’s angels,” pursued Mr. Stewart, taking not the slightest notice. “A face like an opening flower.”
“The flower has a stem six feet high now,” remarked Mr. Collins.
“Dear Reggie! And—and is he as fascinating as ever?”
Mr. Collins laughed.
“I have not known him long, so I cannot say how fascinating he is capable of being. And as a rule Deans and undergraduates don’t put out their full power of fascination in dealing with each other.”
“But whose fault is that?” said Mr. Stewart in a slow unctuous voice. “Surely we ought to be brothers, dear elder brothers to the undergraduates. I remember—”
Mr. Collins, who was obviously sceptical about George Meredith’s remark, and hoped that Stewart was going back to it, brightened up and interrogated, “Yes?” in an intelligent manner.
“I remember,” said Mr. Stewart still sublimely oblivious, “I remember that I myself used always to make friends, dear friends of the undergraduates when I was Dean. If one of them did not attend Chapel often enough, as often, that is, as our odious regulations require, I used to ask him to call for me on his way, and we used to go to Chapel together. One had a rich, lovely tenor voice. I—I forget his name, and I think he is dead.”