and slovenliness of it all, the noise, the fuss, the stink.  I did not feel I had anything in common with those little brutes, as I thought them.  I lived the life of a blind creature in a fright, groping aimlessly about.  I joined in nothing—­but I was always strong, and so I was left alone.  No one dared to interfere with me; and I have sometimes wished I hadn’t been so strong, that I had had the experience of being weak.  I dare say that nasty things might have happened—­but I should have known more what the world was like, I should have depended more upon other people, I should have made friends.  As it was, I left school entirely innocent, very solitary, very modest, thinking myself a complete duffer, and everyone else a beast.  It got a little better at the end of my time, and I had a companion or two—­but I never dreamed of telling anyone what I was really thinking about.”

He broke off suddenly.  “This is awful twaddle!” he said.  “Why should you care to hear about all this?  I was thinking aloud.”

“Do go on thinking aloud a little,” I said; “it is most interesting!”

“Ah,” he said, “with the flatterers were busy mockers!  You enjoy staring and looking upon me.”

“No, no,” I said, rather nettled.  “Father Payne, don’t you understand?  I want to hear more about you.  I want to know how you came to be what you are:  it interests me more than I can say.  You asked me about myself when I came here, and I told you.  Why shouldn’t I ask you, for a change?”

He smiled, obviously pleased at this.  “Why, then,” he said, “I’ll go on.  I’m not above liking to tell my tale, like the Ancient Mariner.  You can beat your breast when you are tired of it.”  He was intent for a moment, and then went on.  “Well, I went up to Oxford—­to Corpus.  A funny little place, I now think—­rather intellectual.  I could hardly believe my senses when I found how different it was from school, and how independent.  Heavens, how happy I was!  I made some friends—­I found I could make friends after all—­I could say what I liked, I could argue, I could even amuse them.  I really couldn’t make you realise how I adored some of those men.  I used to go to sleep after a long evening of chatter, simply hating the darkness which separated me from life and company.  There were two in particular, very ordinary young men, I expect.  But they were fond of me, and liked being with me, and I thought them the most wonderful and enchanting persons, with a wide knowledge of the great mysterious world.  The world!  It wasn’t, I saw, a nasty, jostling place, as I had thought at school, but a great beautiful affair, full of love and delight, of interest and ideas.  I read, I talked, I flew about—­it was simply a new birth!  I felt like a prisoner suddenly released.  Of course, the mischief was that I neglected my work.  There wasn’t time for that:  and I fell in love, too, or thought I did, with the sister of one of those friends, with whom I went to