"Fairly, Paul. But I think I liked those dogs you had best. You always were an odd boy. Do you remember your doves, and your newts? Nasty things."
He laughed outright. "Oh, mother," he said, "my poor prints! But I've got the Landseers stored in the Gyp-room and I'll bring them home for you."
"Thank you, dear. I think they'd do nicely in your old bedroom, and they'll remind you of college when you come home."
Paul was not required to answer. Manning knocked, came in, and was introduced.
The days that followed were unforgettable. For one thing, they were to be the last in the old town and each one had to be savoured to the full. For another, only a few men, waiting for degrees, were up, and Paul had to take his people through colleges and churches and chapels that were not wholly deserted, but in which, nevertheless, beauty reigned supreme in unaccustomed silence. He had a new pride in lawn and court and hall. In a little, he was to be a part of the ancient place, an admitted son, and a son, moreover, who could, so to speak, look his foster-mother fairly in the face. Each separate street and building, too, held a remembered association. It was odd to recall how he had peered through the gate of Christ's and wondered if it were St. Mary's; wandered through Trinity, not quite sure that he had a right to be there; bought his first cake in that little grocer's; swept, one rag night, triumphantly down Pety Cury in a hurrying host with proctors hard in the rear. Then he had to show the Henry Martyn Hall, Parker's Piece, St. Saviour's, and he even dared greatly and pointed out the creeper-fronted Catholic presbytery.
Besides, the days gave him a new intimacy with his parents. A barrier had gone, now that the spectre of the Scarlet Woman no longer peeped out of every conversation. Also the furnishings of Claxted at least were not here. His father, it is true, occasionally probed him to see how far the original impulse to take Anglican Orders really remained, but the thrusts were easily parried. His mother was more of a difficulty. In Great St. Mary's she had laid a hand on his arm. "I wonder if I shall ever see my son preach in that pulpit," she said wistfully.
Paul had no heart to shatter her dream. "I wonder," he replied lightly. But he knew that he did not.
The Ernests came up the day before the great occasion. In the afternoon, the five of them went to a tea garden on the Upper River. Paul refrained from asking any other men for two reasons: for one, there was no one up, unless it were Strether, who would mix with his father and Mr. Ernest; for the other it was rather a wonderful Madeline that he met on the station platform. He never guessed how perseveringly the visit and the garnishings had been schemed for, planned and prepared. He only knew that she wore an amazingly simple frock and a big hat from whose shade the regular beauty of her face looked out at him. In the shaded sunlight, her big eyes, under the dark lashes striking and unusual in so fair a blonde, laughed up at his. "I say, Paul," she said, "you've no idea how proud we are of you."
"Don't," he cried, "you'll make me horribly nervous."
"Rubbish, you never are," she challenged. But it was not that that made her look away content.