“I don’t believe I’ve seen you since you were being coached for Eton, Gaveston. Years and years ago. But you haven’t changed.” It was a long speech for Mongo, but Gav was awake to its possibilities. Rising, he faced the crowded Mongoons, his back to the blazing hearth, a memorable figure. It was obvious that he was about to speak.
“No, Mongo,” he began, in firm even tones. “Not changed.…” And with all the exquisite modulations and gestures of a born conversationalist, he went on. “For beauty is something constant and unchanging, is it not? Aspects may come and aspects may go, but the essence of beauty is stable and established, indestructible and indeciduous, in art or in life, in life or in art, and indeed in both.”
It was a daring thesis. The ghost of a shudder rose from the most hardened Mongoons. But the ffoulis charm carried it off, and with graceful learning he developed his theme.
“There is fashion in the beauty of women, is there not? Now it is fixed by Angelo or Angelico, now by Cimabue or Ruysdael, Augustus John or Augustus Egg—all have their day, but beneath the shifting sands lies always the eternal lodestone.”
And without a pause, without a flaw, he kept the even tenour of his delightful argument, his hearers sitting in enraptured complaisance. Occasionally from the hob came the subtle encouragements of dear Mongo, every ten minutes perhaps, or even more seldom after two o’clock had clanged out over the sleeping roofs of this wonderful city.…
“Delightful, Gaveston!”
“Wonderful, Gav!”
The eager congratulations of the Mongoons still rang gratefully in his ears as he felt his way down the turret staircase of XXXIV. Only five hours ago he had climbed it, an unknown potentiality in Wallace: he descended to find himself a Mongoon and famous. And now, how quiet and dark lay the quad before him! It seemed almost to be expectant, to be waiting for something astounding and prodigious to break in upon its alabaster dream. The dawn? Gaveston wondered as he walked back to his rooms, or … or…?
What a night it had been!
The manner! And Mongo!