For a few years?
How did he know that he should have even a few years in which to think and work for his College?
The Warden went to the fire and stood looking down into it, his hands clasped behind his back.
The girl he was pledged to marry, if she wished to marry him, might wreck his life! She had only just a few moments ago showed signs of being weakly hysterical. "Helpful to the College!" His sister's question had filled him with a sudden new ominous thought.
What about the College? He had forgotten his duty to the College!
"My marriage is my own concern," he was blurting out to himself miserably, as he looked at the fire. But the inevitable answer was already drumming in his ears—his own answer: "A man's action is not his own concern, and so deeply is every man involved in the life of the community in which he lives, that even his thoughts are not his own concern."
The Warden paced up and down.
There were letters lying on his desk unopened, unread. He would not attempt to answer any of them to-night. He could not attend to them, while these words were beating in his brain: "Do you think she will be helpful to the College?"
His College! More to him than anything else, more than his duty; his hope, his pride! And the College meant also the sacred memory of those who had fallen in the war, all the glorious hopeful youth that had sacrificed itself! And he had forgotten the College!
He dared not think any longer. He must wrestle with his thoughts. He must force them aside and wait, till the moment came when he must act. That moment might not come! Possibly it might not! He would go to bed and try and sleep. He must not let thoughts so bitter and so deadly overwhelm him, eating into the substance of his brain, where they could breed and batten on the finest tissues and breed again.