“Just so. And I’m not so very different. I knew your father wanted a successor—some one who’d try and tie up the loose ends. And I took the lectureship with that object.”
“And you’re using it to tear the whole fabric to pieces!”
Dredge paused to re-light his pipe. “Looks that way,” he conceded. “This year anyhow.”
“ This year—?” Archie gasped at him.
“Yes. When I took up the job I saw it just as your father left it. Or rather, I didn’t see any other way of going on with it. The change came gradually, as I worked.”
“Gradually? So that you had time to look round you, to know where you were, to see you were fatally committed to undoing the work he had done?”
“Oh, yes—I had time,” Dredge conceded.
“And yet you kept the chair and went on with the course?”
Dredge refilled his pipe, and then turned in his seat so that he looked squarely at Archie.
“What would your father have done in my place?” he asked.