Suddenly Langham dashed the volume from him, almost with violence.
'Forget that drivel, Elsmere. It was a crime to show it to you. It is not sane; neither perhaps am I. But I am not going to Scotland. They would request me to resign in a week.'
Long after Elsmere, who had stayed talking a while on other things, had gone, Langham sat on brooding over the empty grate.
'Corrupter of youth!' he said to himself once bitterly. And perhaps it was to a certain remorse in the tutor's mind that Elsmere owed an experience of great importance to his after life.
The name of a certain Mr. Grey had for some time before his entry at Oxford been more or less familiar to Robert's ears as that of a person of great influence and consideration at St. Anselm's. His tutor at Harden had spoken of him in the boy's hearing as one of the most remarkable men of the generation, and had several times impressed upon his pupil that nothing could be so desirable for him as to secure the friendship of such a man. It was on the occasion of his first interview with the Provost, after the scholarship examination, that Robert was first brought face to face with Mr. Grey. He could remember a short dark man standing beside the Provost, who had been introduced to him by that name, but the nervousness of the moment had been so great that the boy had been quite incapable of giving him any special attention.
During his first term and a half of residence, Robert occasionally met Mr. Grey in the quadrangle or in the street, and the tutor, remembering the thin, bright-faced youth, would return his salutations kindly, and sometimes stop to speak to him, to ask him if he were comfortably settled in his rooms, or make a remark about the boats. But the acquaintance did not seem likely to progress, for Mr. Grey was a Greats tutor, and Robert naturally had nothing to do with him as far as work was concerned.
However, a day or two after the conversation we have described, Robert, going to Langham's rooms late in the afternoon to return a book which had been lent to him, perceived two figures standing talking on the hearth-rug, and by the western light beating in recognised the thick-set frame and broad brow of Mr. Grey.
'Come in, Elsmere,' said Langham, as he stood hesitating on the threshold. 'You have met Mr. Grey before, I think?'
'We first met at an anxious moment,' said Mr. Grey, smiling and shaking hands with the boy 'A first interview with the Provost is always formidable. I remember it too well myself. You did very well, I remember, Mr. Elsmere. Well, Langham, I must be off. I shall be late for my meeting as it is. I think we have settled our business. Good-night.'
Langham stood a moment after the door closed, eyeing young Elsmere. There was a curious struggle going on in the tutor's mind.