"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.
The clock in the Elizabethan gable above the Hall was striking eleven as he and Donaldson, the ritual of that first coffee ended, came out into the starlight. Below, in the First Court, they stood a moment to say good-night. Lights gleamed in a few windows and a soft radiance of moonshine fell on the armorial bearings in the great oriel of the Hall. The few street noises seemed very remote. There was an air of seclusion, of peace, about the place, and Paul drew in the night air with great breaths. "How unutterably lovely it all is!" he exclaimed.
The other glanced round carelessly. "Yes," he said, "I say, that fellow Strether wants taking in hand."
"Oh?" queried Paul dubiously.
"Good God, yes. Did you ever see such boots? And his bags! But he's got some money, I should say. Still, one can't be seen with him till he gets something decent to wear."
"I liked him," said Paul shortly.
"Oh so did I. But look here, let's pinch his boots and make him buy some decent brogues."
Paul was tickled. "All right," he said, laughing. "But how?"
"Easily enough. Wait till he's out. Come to brekker to-morrow, and arrange a plan of campaign."
"What time?"
"Any time you like. Say nine. There's no chapel and no lekkers yet. Will that do?"
"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.
"Yes. They are rather jolly, aren't they? That's a genuine Corot over there which I bamboozled the governor into letting me bring up. Are you fond of art?"
"Very," said Paul, "but I know so little about it. Literature's more in my line. I'm awfully keen. I say, I wonder if you'd come to 'The Literary Lounge' one night?"
The other smiled. "That's the new freshers' effort, isn't it? Still, I don't mind. What night?"
Paul was hugely delighted, and began to expand. "I'd love to know what you think of some of my things," he said.
"You should show them to Tressor. He'd help you."
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Paul, "I shouldn't dare."
"Why not? Not that I think much of Tressor's stuff myself. Of course he can write rattlin' English, and it all flows placidly enough, but there's nothing much in it. It's extraordinary what the public will read. He has huge sales. I know him quite a lot you know. Knew him at Winchester."
"He reads my essays,