"Yes. Are you busy? My things haven't all come yet, and your room's a damned sight more cheerful than mine."
"Do sit down," said Paul. "Take the new armchair. You're the first person to sit in it."
"They call 'em pews here," rejoined the other, sinking into the seat. He had a pipe in his hand, which he lit. "You smoke?" he queried.
"No," said Paul.
"Well, I do. Always have. I can't read without it. I mean to row if I can, and I don't know how I'll get on when we train. What are you going to do?"
"I'm not sure," said Paul cautiously, not sure either what the other really meant.
"Well, row then. The boat captain's up already. I saw him after lunch. I'll tell him you want to tub, shall I? It'll be sporting if we get in a boat together."
"Yes," said Paul, kindling at the proffered friendship.
Sitting opposite across the fire, Paul took stock of his companion who did the major part of the talking. Donaldson was a busy personage and an unfamiliar type to Paul. It soon appeared that he held a missionary bursarship from a society which Paul called "high church"; that he was not, however, at all keen on a missionary vocation; that the fact that he was to be a "priest" (as he put it) did not proscribe his pleasures to any great extent; and that he was very sure of himself. Much of his conversation was unintelligible to Paul, but he was friendly, and the boy was more lonely than he knew. They went down to Hall together seemingly the best of friends, but Paul was already aware that he was wading in unfamiliar waters.
His first Hall was responsible for a series of indelible impressions. The lovely old room, lit only by candles in great silver sconces, with its sombre portraits, its stone-flagged floor, its arching roof, made him unutterably proud. The few shy freshers in an oasis of light, emphasised the dignity of the place. This was his Hall. A solitary fellow at the high table read a Latin grace in which Paul understood only the Sacred Name, and that was repeated with what struck him as a familiarity, an indifference, to which he was wholly a stranger. Accustomed to the simplest meals, the dinner (rather unusually good at St. Mary's), and the many waiters seemed grand to him. The comparative ease of his companions, who nevertheless, being all freshers, eyed each other curiously, made him self-conscious to a degree, and Donaldson, more at his ease than anyone, seemed in his eyes to be bold and daring. Next him, on the other side, sat a quiet man sombrely dressed, who, he gathered, had been a day-boy like himself at a lesser public school, and who introduced himself as Strether. He kept in the Second Court. The three came out together, and Strether asked them up to his rooms for coffee.