“Why, Oxford is full of men.”
“That may be. I don’t know ’em. I only wish I did.”
The boy spoke bitterly and his eyes were full of gloom.
“Don’t you go to school?” this “older man” asked anxiously.
“No, I’m too delicate, so they say.”
“Who teaches you, then?”
“A guv’ness. I say, do you think we ought to talk here?”
“I see no reason why not. This isn’t the library, there is no notice enforcing silence.”
The boy looked as if he wished there was. He sat perfectly mute, with his eyes fixed on the placid portrait over the schoolmaster’s head.
“Wouldn’t you like to come downstairs with me and see some of the curiosities in the library?” the schoolmaster suggested beguilingly.