"And it's time we did," Cobbens put in. "We 're much obliged to you, sir. We 've had a charming time, and owe you a vote of thanks."
When Leigh had lighted them downstairs, he ascended once more to his cabin, tortured by an acute self-consciousness. The evening had been far from satisfactory; never had the difference between anticipation and realisation been more impressively illustrated. In his afternoon dreams he had not considered Miss Wycliffe's companions, except as shadows, and it was they who had disturbed what would otherwise have been a charmed atmosphere. His quotation would have been natural had he been alone with the woman he loved, but in that company it seemed inept and melodramatic, deserving the rebuke she so easily administered. In his humiliation he thought that he must have appeared extremely youthful in her eyes, one who could not conceal his emotions before the gaze of the curious and shallow. Could he have overheard the conversation which took place between Cobbens and Miss Wycliffe on their way home, his distress would have been in no way lightened.
The lawyer allowed the machine to run more slowly, that its jar and noise might not drown his voice.
"Your friend with the comet-coloured hair," he began, "will never fit into the life of St. George's Hall. I can see he has n't the true Hall traditions or spirit."
She was apparently more interested in his views than inclined to express her own. If she reflected at all upon the speaker's lack of that physical distinction which he selected in Leigh for the exercise of his wit, and if she derived some enjoyment from an understanding of his resentment, she kept it to herself.
"What makes you think so?" she asked serenely. "What was he doing with that Tom Emmet up there?" he demanded, by way of answer. "In my day, the professors of the Hall were more select in the company they kept."
"Times have changed since then," she commented, "and the world has grown democratic."
He suspected her mood of mockery, but his intelligence could not hold his spleen in check.
"Yes," he went on malevolently, "I suppose it has; and soon we shall have a lot of muckers in the college instead of the gentlemen that used to go there in my day. So that's the prize poor old Renshaw drew from the Western grab-bag! It's too bad your father was away."
"Is n't it?" she assented. "But then, you know, he is here on a year's appointment, and perhaps he will leave in the spring."