I could not understand him in the least, for I had been accustomed to masters who talked about things of which I knew a little even if they were bored by doing so; but when I met Mr. Edwardes I felt that he belonged to the ice period, and that he would think the smallest thaw a waste of time.
I do like a human being, I mean a man who lets you know something about him and does not barricade himself against you. But a man who puts up the shutters in front of his virtues and faults bothers me most terribly, and I always seem to be bumping my head against something invisible whenever I see him, which is a most disconcerting performance.
Mr. Edwardes was also Murray's tutor, but Murray was not afflicted, as I was, with the desire to know people more than they wanted to be known, and he told me that if I would only take Edwardes as I found him we should get on together splendidly. In spite of Jack Ward, I saw Murray every day, and the more I knew of him the more I liked him. He was in my room one evening after Ward had arranged that we were to have a freshers' wine, and I asked him if he was coming to it.
"I can't go unless I am asked," he said, "and I shan't go now if I am asked."
I resolved to say a few things to Ward, but I did not know what to say to Murray.
"Ward is asking everybody he wants, isn't he?" he inquired.
"Yes it was left to him and Dennison, I believe."
"Then I am not likely to be invited, for he and I never could do anything but have rows with each other at Wellingham."
"What about?" I asked, for Murray had never said much about Ward to me and I wanted to hear his side of the quarrel.
"It isn't worth repeating," he answered. "I was head of the school and Ward thought a friend of his ought to have seen. He thinks I am a smug because I have to work, and I suppose I think he is a fool because he thinks I am a smug. He is a queer sort, and it is hopeless for me to try to be friends with him, even if I wanted to be, and I don't."
"He is a fairly good cricketer, isn't he?" I asked, for I had discovered that when Murray had once made up his mind no efforts of mine would change it.
"Yes, he would have got into the XI. quite easily only he was so slack, and the master who looked after our cricket couldn't stand him. It was rather a swindle that he didn't get into the team all the same."
"I hate slackers," I said, and to prove it I set to work on some Homer for Edwardes. Murray got his books and we slaved together for nearly two hours, when a most timid knock sounded on my door, and a man came in who seemed to be most fearfully nervous. He was carrying a gown and a cap in his hand, and he looked at Murray, who was not at all an alarming sight, as if he had encountered a wild man from one of those regions where wild men are bred. I had never had much practice at putting any one at their ease, for most people hit me on the back and call me "old fellow" far too soon; but I tried very hard to calm my visitor, and though it was six o'clock I asked him to have tea and every conceivable other thing I could think of, all of which he refused. He told me his name was Owen, but apart from that I knew nothing, and the more he fidgeted with the tassel of his cap the more I wondered why he had come.
Murray, however, guessed that he was in the way and hurried off as soon as he could. Then Owen made two or three unsuccessful efforts to begin, until I felt that I must offer him something more, only I had nothing left to offer. The man who said that hospitality covers a multitude of emotions went nearer the mark than most of those word-turning people do. But at last it all came out in jerks, and I felt most thoroughly sorry for him; if I had been in his place I am certain I should never have faced such an ordeal.
"I didn't like to tell you why I had come before your friend," he began; and he still twisted his cap round and round by the tassel. "I suppose a sort of false modesty prevented me, but I might just as well have spoken before him."
"Murray is a most awfully good sort," I said lamely, for I wanted to help him so much that my head felt hot and I could not think.
"I expect he is," Owen went on, "but I haven't come to be friends with your friends. I only wanted to see you, and the reason is that over twenty years ago in India your father saved my father's life."
I did feel relieved when he told me that, for I had been imagining that he was the kind of man who is known as a freak, and had come to win me over to some stupid crank which he would call a noble cause.
"I am most tremendously glad you have come," I said, and then I began talking about my father's old regiment, and Owen could not get a word in until I had finished.
"You don't understand," he said, as soon as he got a chance; "when you talk about a regiment you only think of the officers, my father was one of the men."
"I don't see what that matters as long as his life was saved."
"It does matter," Owen replied; "it matters here very much, where there is not much liberality except in offering meals and things not wanted." I moved my feet and kicked the fender, the fire-irons jangled together and he went on: "I ought not to have said that, it is my blundering way to say the thing I oughtn't; what I meant was that Oxford is not very liberal to a man like I am, who is here by hard work, and not because his fathers and grandfathers were here before him. It is impossible in a place of sets—social, athletic, and all the rest—for a man who has to work to keep himself, to be treated in the same way as you, for instance, are treated. I am not what the world calls a gentleman."
"Oh, confound the world," I said, "it is always mixed up in my mind with the flesh and the devil," and as Owen did not say anything for a minute I asked him what college he was at.
"I am unattached, St. Catherine's if you like; we are called 'The Toshers,'" he answered, and there was a note of bitterness in his voice. "Of course," he went on, "I am boring you to death, but I must say that I should never have come to see you if my father had not made me promise that I would. He takes a tremendous interest in both your brother and you; he knows the place your brother passed into Sandhurst and where he was in the list when he went out, and last summer he watched for your name in The Sportsman, and when you got any wickets he was as pleased as Punch. He writes to Colonel Marten still."
I wished I could have said that my father had mentioned him to me, but if I had I am certain that Owen would have seen that I was not telling the truth. "My father," I tried to explain, "never talks about anything he has done. If your father had saved his life I should have heard of it a hundred times."
"You have the knack of saying the right thing, I shall never get that if I live to be a hundred;" and then he stood up, and putting a hand on the mantel-piece looked at the photographs of my people, but he did not say what he thought about them.
"If I did say the right thing, it was a most fearful fluke," I said, for I could not be silent. "I simply hate men who walk about patting themselves on the back because they have had what they call success with a remark."
He did not listen to what I was saying, but stood staring into the fire; at last he turned round and held out a hand to me.
"I must thank you," he began; "and there is one other thing I have got to ask you before I say good-bye. My father asked me to make you promise that you would never mention what I have told you about his life being saved by your father, or anything about him. It seems to be a sort of compact, I don't understand it. He doesn't want your people to know anything about me, but only you."
I promised, of course, but I felt rather bothered.
"We may meet some day in the street," he said, and he pushed his hand into mine; but I let it go, and told him to sit down again. For this last speech of his was annoying, he had evidently got a wrong idea of me.
"It is no use talking rot," I said. "To begin with, what on earth have you got to thank me for?"
"If Colonel Marten hadn't saved my father's life, I should never have been born," he said.
"And you have come to thank me for that?" I said, and I did not mean