Boreham admitted that it was fine, but he insisted that it was too good for the place, and he went on with his main discourse.
When they entered the dining-hall, the dignity of the room, with its noble ceiling, its rich windows and the glow of the portraits on the walls, brought another exclamation from May's lips.
But all this academic splendour annoyed Boreham extremely. It seemed to jeer at him as an outsider.
"It's too good for the collection of asses who dine here," he said.
As to the portraits, he insisted that among them all, among all these so-called distinguished men, there was not one that possessed any real originality and power—except perhaps the painter Watts.
"It's so like Oxford," he added, "to produce nothing distinctive."
May laughed now, with a subdued laughter that was a little irritating, because it was uncalled for.
"I am laughing," she explained, "because 'the world we actually live in' is such a funny place and is so full of funny people—ourselves included."
That was not a reason for laughter if it were true, and it was not true that she was, or that he was "funny." If she had been "funny" he would not have been in love with her. He detained her in front of the portrait of Wesley.
"I wonder they have had the sense to keep him here," said Boreham. "He is a perpetual reminder to them of the scandalous torpor of the Church which repudiated him. Yes, I wonder they tolerate him. Anyhow, I suppose they tolerate him because, after all, they tolerate anybody who tries to keep alive a lost cause. Religion was dying a natural death and, instead of letting it die, he revived it for a bit. It was as good as you could expect from an Oxford man! When an Oxford man revolts, he only revolts in order to take up some lost cause, some survival!"