“Good morning then; I shall come again soon.”
“Do, I shall like to see you,” said Julian; and De Vayne went away, thinking with some happiness, that if he had won Julian’s affection, that would be something towards helping him to win Violet’s too.
Julian had no intention that any strange eye should see how much he had felt his disappointment, so when Mr Admer came to see him, he gave no sign of vexation, and they talked indifferently for a few minutes, till Mr Admer said—
“Well, Home, I’m sorry you haven’t got this scholarship. Not that it makes the least difference, you know, really. No sensible man would have thought one atom the better of you for getting it, and even your reputation stands just as high as before.
“Ah, I see you take it to heart rather; all very natural, but when you’re my age you’ll think less of these things. There are higher successes in the world than these small University affairs.”
“But they aren’t small to me,” said Julian. “Not to men up here,” said Mr Admer.
“‘They think the rustic cackle of their body
The murmur of the world.’”
“Perhaps, after all, if you had got it, it would only have helped to make you as fussy, as foolish, and as self-important as Jones, and Brown, and Robinson, who, because they are dons, think themselves the most important people in England, when really they are only conspicuous for empty-headedness and conceit; or as the senior Wrangler, who entering the theatre at the same moment as the queen, bowed graciously on all sides in acknowledgment of the acclamations. As it is, Home, you are a man who ought to do something in the world.”
Julian could not help smiling at Mr Admer’s usual style, and would have found some relief in arguing with him, had not Hazlet entered, whose very appearance put Mr Admer to a precipitate flight. There could not have been any human being less likely to give Julian any effectual consolation at such a moment, and he could not help sighing as Mr Admer left him to his persecutor.
“Fugit improbus ac me sub cultro linquit,” he said appealingly, secure in Hazlet’s ignorance of the Latin tongue; but Mr Admer only shook his head significantly, and disappeared.