She smiled slowly. "I think I'd rather marry a—a——"
For the life of him he couldn't help it. "An actor, perhaps," he said, "or an author."
She flushed. "I don't know," she said in an undertone.
He laughed suddenly. "Well, Madeline," he said, "I'll remember. I expect I'll be able to introduce you to ever so many. And I'm sure they'd want to marry you anyway. There'll be no need to pray about that."
He let go her hand and stood up. "By Jove," he said, "I think we ought to be getting back."
(4)
So, then, the great day came and went. Scarlet splashed the streets. Self-conscious young men moved about them in rabbit-skin hoods and undergraduate gowns and fluttering bows of white, girls walked beside them in conscious surrender of one day at any rate to superior claims, and parents brooded majestically in the background. The files of neophytes lined up on the crowded floor of the Senate House in an atmosphere of subdued whispering talk, peering over heads and round shoulders in an endeavour to see what was going forward at the far end. One had occasional glimpses of a rather bored-looking personage in robes on a raised chair, dons with sheafs of papers in the vicinity, and some young man or another kneeling in stiff self-consciousness. Other colleges' undergraduates went up, applauded by compatriots, disdained by the rest. Paul was vividly rejoiced that he came from St. Mary's and not from Emmanuel or Cats.; an Emmanuel rowing-blue, arriving a little late, shouldered past him with a glance that shouted aloud the absurdity of those half-dozen St. Mary's men. An usher gave them their signal. Paul found himself in a cleared space, and saw Tressor looming large on its edge. He was aware that he had to kneel in a feudal attitude and that the Vice-Chancellor was murmuring Latin. The indifference of the majority about him made the whole ceremony oddly impersonal. And now they were all out again, and there was the façade of the Library, and the buttresses of King's Chapel, looking stained and grey against a grey sky.
That evening, Paul had an odd encounter. He had seen his people to their rooms, and, returning, hesitated to ring the bell and enter college. It had become a jolly night of stars, with a fleeting mist on the river, and he was going down for good the very next day. He thought he would walk through the old town for the last time, in the ways he had walked so many times during the past three years, his mind in a whirl of thought. So he strolled over the bridge, and down past spectral St. Laurence's, and round the corner by portentous John's, and so on to Trinity. And as he drew near to Trinity, the sound of bolts being withdrawn in the great gateway came to his ears in the stillness.
The door opened, and a tall figure emerged. "Good-night, my lord," said the porter's voice, subservient, deferential.
"Good-night," replied the other cheerfully, and strode briskly forward.