But the Vice-Chancellor himself was an anti-climax.
At a glance Gav saw that here at least no elaborate diplomacy would be needed: the characteristic ffoulis charm would suffice. The venerable Warden, for his part, veteran though he was of a thousand such encounters, saw that at last he had met a duellist worthy of a finer Toledo steel than ever he could wield. He glanced out of his armoured window towards the towering dome of the Shelley Memorial, and his lips tightened.
Gaveston, twinkle-eyed, made the opening démarche.
“The Emperor, sir, is come to Canossa,” he said, a charming smile playing about his attractive lips.
And flattered, as he was meant to be, by the happy historical metaphor, the old man let his Machiavellian features relax into a nervous, but sincere, smile.
Gav never let psychological moments slip.
“I don’t think you need repeat that speech you had prepared for me,” he followed up quickly. “I know what you were going to say.”
The sagacious but undiplomatic functionary looked in amazement at the handsome figure before him. His lips struggled to frame a reply, but Gav raised a deprecating hand.
“You were going to say,” he continued sternly, “that my words are read from the Brahmapoutra to the Potomac, that a thousand races in a hundred climes see in them the authentic voice of Oxford. You were going to say that the stability of the Empire was threatened. You were going perhaps to say that I paid my college bills with blood-stained roubles, and, for all I know, that the foremost principle of a university must always be Mens sana in corpore sano. Were you not?”
The old man winced at the last shrewd thrust, and bowed his head.