During the three weeks that followed he made some frantic efforts to make up lost ground. He had not been idle for a single day, but he had been unwise, an intellectual spendthrift, living in a continuous succession of enthusiasms, and now at the critical moment his stock of nerve and energy was at a low ebb. He went in depressed and tired, his friends watching anxiously for the result. On the day of the Logic paper, as he emerged into the Schools quadrangle, he felt his arm caught by Mr. Grey.
'Come with me for a walk, Elsmere; you look as if some air would do you good.'
Robert acquiesced, and the two men turned into the passage way leading out on to Radcliffe Square.
'I have done for myself, sir,' said the youth with a sigh, half impatience, half depression. 'It seems to me to-day that I had neither mind nor memory. If I get a second I shall be lucky.'
'Oh, you will get your second whatever happens,' said Mr. Grey quietly, 'and you mustn't be too much cast down about it if you don't get your first.'
This implied acceptance of his partial defeat, coming from another's lips, struck the excitable Robert like a lash. It was only what he had been saying to himself, but in the most pessimist forecasts we make for ourselves, there is always an under protest of hope.
'I have been wasting my time here lately,' he said, hurriedly raising his college cap from his brows as if it oppressed them, and pushing his hair back with a weary restless gesture.
'No,' said Mr. Grey, turning his kind frank eyes upon him. 'As far as general training goes, you have not wasted your time at all. There are many clever men who don't get a first class, and yet it is good for them to be here—so long as they are not loungers and idlers, of course. And you have not been a lounger; you have been headstrong, and a little over-confident, perhaps,' —the speaker's smile took all the sting out of the words—'but you have grown into a man, and you are fit now for man's work. Don't let yourself be depressed, Elsmere. You will do better in life than you have done in examination.'
The young man was deeply touched. This tone of personal comment and admonition was very rare with Mr. Grey. He felt a sudden consciousness of a shared burden which was infinitely soothing, and though he made no answer, his face lost something of its harassed look as the two walked on together down Oriel Street and into Merton Meadows.
'Have you any immediate plans?' said Mr. Grey, as they turned into the Broad Walk, now in the full leafage of June, and rustling under a brisk western wind blowing from the river.