Then he went back to college and packed his portmanteau.
He left most of his books, and took only clothes and things that did not require much room. Scott would send up the heavy things after him. He told his scout he was going down for a few days, and that Mr. Scott of Merton would forward all letters. He knew that if his intended departure became known his creditors would rush to the Rector, and he would probably be detained.
He lingered over lunch, making an excellent meal, drinking a good deal of brandy, and thinking over the position. As far as he could see things were not so very bad; he could probably earn enough by journalism to keep him, and he had forty-five pounds in his pocket, while the pleasures of London awaited him.
He lay back in an armchair, taking deep draughts of hot cigarette smoke into his lungs, smiling at the idea of his morning's work, and wondering how he had done it—analyzing and dissecting his own fascination.
It is a curious thing that the more evil we are the more intensely we are absorbed in our own personality. The clever scoundrel is always an egotist; and Gobion liked nothing better than to admire himself quietly and dispassionately.
Leaning back half asleep, looking lazily at the purring, spitting fire, his thoughts turned swiftly into memories, and a vista of the last few years opened up before him.
He saw himself a boy of fifteen, keenly sensitive and inordinately vain. He remembered how his eager hunger for admiration had led him to pose even to his father and mother; how, when he found out he was clever, he used to lie carefully to conceal his misdoings from them. Gradually and slowly he had grown more evil and more bitter at the narrowness which misunderstood him.
When love had gone the deterioration was more marked, and he threw himself into grossness. His imagination was too quick and vivid to let him live in vice wholly without remorse, and every now and again he wildly and passionately confessed his sins and turned his back on them, as he thought, for ever. Then after a week or two the emotional fervour of repentance would wear off, and he would plunge more deeply into vice, and lead a jolly, wicked life.