"Right-o," said Paul. "Good-night."
"Good-night. Doesn't matter if you're a bit late."
In his room, Paul lit a candle. Then he climbed into one of his window-seats and stared out at the moonlit, slow-moving river, the bare chestnuts, the empty street. "How too lovely," he whispered to himself again, and sat long ere he got down to go to his little bedroom. As he did so, the flickering candlelight showed him his multi-coloured text with its white background. The words stared at him silently, and he repeated them to himself with something already of the air of a stranger.
(2)
Paul acclimatised with astonishing rapidity. Within a fortnight his "square" was gloriously "bashed," no one thundered more boisterously up and down the stairs, and few strolled into Hall with more nonchalance. He tubbed daily and promisingly. He was poor, but he was learning to make his own porridge and fry his own breakfast eggs and bacon without an apology to Mrs. Rover. Donaldson and Strether (in brogues now) had taken to foregathering in his rooms as a regular thing. He was known at large to be "pi," but among the freshers he was shaping for a place which would discount that to some extent. A few literary men of his own year had already heard some of his verses and read a short story or two, and the three friends had begun to conceive of "The Literary Lounge," a free and easy club which was to gather from time to time for the encouragement of amateur talent. Cambridge was moulding him far more speedily than even Edith had expected.
The Chapel had been an unforgettable experience. His first Sunday, at the early service, Paul saw a vision of beauty which he had never associated with religion before. The small clean Gothic sanctuary, with its old oak stalls, its fourteenth-century chalice, its air of age and quiet, was a new thing to him. The Dean, with his flaming scarlet hood, "took up" the Eastward position it is true; but his reading was so scholarly, his rendering of the service so reserved, that Paul knew that here was an atmosphere which, if utterly familiar to most of the men, was completely foreign to himself. Fervour, loud congregational singing, intense pietism, all had gone; but in their stead had come a sober solemn figure of austere beauty who was a new interpreter in religion to him. The change entranced even while it repelled him. Robed in his white surplice in his stall, he was aware of a historic past which had scarcely concerned him religiously heretofore, and he was awed into reverence. Back in his own room, it is true he was chiefly conscious of a lack somewhere, a lack which, however, was made up to him by the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union with its prayer meetings and its evening sermon to first year men in St. Saviour's Church. But even these struck a new note. There was an emphasis on the intellectual side of belief. That had been all but entirely absent in Claxted.
His growing friendship with Manning emphasised all this. Manning was a second year man who had rowed in his first year Lents and Mays, and was now coaching the new freshers. Paul had tubbed late one evening, and he and Manning had left the boathouse together. They bicycled back in company, and in the porch of the college, the great man invited Paul in to tea. He would scarcely have dared to refuse.
The other had ground-floor rooms, much finer and bigger than Paul's. They had been redecorated; a baby grand stood in one corner; a revolving bookcase by the fire held a terra-cotta Winged Victory; two or three gilt-framed pictures graced the white-papered walls. "Take a pew," said Manning carelessly, and shouted at the door for the kitchens.
He ordered "oils" and cakes lavishly, and when the buttered buns had duly arrived and tea was well forward, Paul ventured a word of praise.
"What topping rooms you have," he said.