heir, little Oxley, acted as his fag, boot-black and bacon-frier, for the best part of a year at school?  Notwithstanding which fact—­Lord Oxley was of a mild, forgiving disposition—­had not he, Tom, spent the cricket week several summers running at Napworth Castle; where, on one celebrated occasion, he bowled a distinguished Permanent Under-Secretary first ball, and, on another, chided a marquis and ex-Cabinet Minister for misquoting Catullus.

Yet now, sitting smoking and listening to those records of eastern rule and eastern battle, in the quiet lamp-light of the long room—­with its dark book-cases, faintly gleaming Chinese images, and dumpy pillars—­his native cheekiness faded into most unwonted humility.  For he was increasingly conscious of being, to put it vulgarly “up against something pretty big.”  Conscious of a personality altogether too secure of its own power to spread itself or, in the smallest degree, bluff or brag.  Sir Charles Verity struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism.  He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost.  There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, of initiative and of thought.  Only once or twice, during the course of their long talk, did the young man detect any sign of personal feeling.  Then for an instant, some veil seemed to be lifted, some curtain drawn aside; while, with dazzling effect, he became cognizant of underlying bitterness, underlying romance—­of secret dealings of man with man, of man with woman, and the dealing, arbitrary, immutable, final, of Death and a Greater than Death, with both.

These revelations though of the briefest, over before he fairly grasped their import, gone like a breath, were still sufficient to discredit many preconceived ideas and enlarge his mental horizon to a somewhat anxious extent.  They carried him very far from life as lived at Canton Magna Rectory; very far from all, indeed, in which the roots of his experience were set, thus producing an atmosphere of doubt, of haunting and insidious unrest.

And of that atmosphere he was particularly sensible when, standing in the hall, flat candlestick in hand, he at last bade Sir Charles Verity good night.

“It has been a wonderful evening, sir,” he said, simply and modestly.  “You have been awfully kind in sparing me so much of your time; but, indeed, it has not been time wasted.  I begin to measure a little what India means, I hope.  Certainly I begin to measure the depth of my own ignorance.  I see I have nearly everything of essential importance still to learn.  And that is a pretty large order—­almost staggeringly large now that, thanks to you, I begin to realize the vastness of the amount.”