"Such men as I speak of," he went on, "Oxford must always have possessed, even in the boisterous days when you fellows of All Souls," he said, addressing Bingham, "used to pull your doors off their hinges to make bonfires in honour of the mallard. There always have been these men, students shy and sensitive, shrinking from the rougher side of the ordinary man, shrinking from ordinary social life; men who are only courageous in their devotion to learning and to truth; men who are lonely with that awful loneliness of those who live in the world of thoughts. I knew one such man myself. Those who believe in ghosts may come upon the shades of these men in the passages and in the cloisters at night, or hiding in the dark recesses of our college windows. Why, I can feel them everywhere—and yet I don't believe in ghosts." The Warden placed his elbows upon the table and rested his chin upon his hands, and looked down at the table-cloth.
May said nothing; she was listening, her face bent but expressive even to her eyebrows.
"Neither do I," said Bingham, in an altered voice. "I don't believe in ghosts, and yet, what do we know of this world? We talk of it glibly. But what do we know of the forces which make up the phantasmagoria that we call the World? What do we know of this vast universe? We perceive something of it by touch, by sight, sound and smell. These are the doors through which its forces penetrate the brain of man. These doors are our way of 'being aware' of life. The psychology of man is in its infancy. And remember"—here Bingham leaned over the table and rested his eyes on May—"it is man studying himself! That makes the difficulty!" Bingham was serious now, and he had slipped from slang into the academic form in which his thoughts really moved.
"And we don't even know whether our ways of perceiving are the only ways," said the Warden.
"Anyhow," said Bingham, turning to him, "the ghosts you 'feel,' and which you and I don't believe in, belong to the old Oxford, the Oxford which is gone."
There came a sudden silence in the long room, and May felt that she ought to make a move. She looked at the Warden.
"That Oxford," continued Bingham, "is gone for ever. It began to go when men hedged it round with red brick, and went to live under red-tiled roofs with wives and children."
"Yes, it has gone," said the Warden. "Must you leave us!" he asked, rising, as May looked at him and made a movement to rise.
Bingham rose to his feet, but he stood with his hand holding the foot of his glass and gazing into its crimson depths.
"Pardon, Middleton! Mrs. Dashwood, one moment," he said, and he raised his glass solemnly till it was almost on a level with his dark face. "Will you pledge me?" he asked. "To the old Oxford that is past and gone!"