Mr. Sandys found no lack of subjects to descant upon; but voluble, and indeed absurd as he was, Howard could not help liking him; he was a good fellow, he could see, and managed to diffuse a geniality over the scene.  “I am interested in most things,” he said, at the end of a breathless harangue, “and there is something in the presence of a real live student, from the forefront of the intellectual battle, which rouses all my old activities—­stimulates them, in fact.  This will be a memorable evening for me, Mr. Kennedy, and I have abundance of things to ask you.”  He did indeed ask a good many things, but he was content to answer them himself.  Once indeed, in the course of an immense tirade, in which Mr. Sandys’ intellectual curiosity took a series of ever-widening sweeps, Howard caught his neighbour regarding him with a half-amused look, and became aware that she was wondering if he were playing Jack’s game.  Their eyes met, and he knew that she knew that he knew.  He smiled and shook his head.  She gave him a delighted little smile, and Howard had that touch of absurd ecstasy, which visits men no longer young, when they find themselves still in the friendly camp of the young, and not in the hostile camp of the middle-aged.

Presently he said to her something about Jack, and how much he enjoyed seeing him at Cambridge.  “He is really rather a wonderful person,” he added.  “There isn’t anyone at Beaufort who has such a perfectly defined relation to everyone in the college, from the master down to the kitchen-boys.  He talks to everyone without any embarrassment, and yet no one really knows what he is thinking!  He is very deep, really, and I think he has a fine future before him.”

Maud lighted up at this, and said:  “Do you really think so?” and added, “You know how much he admires you?”

“I am glad to be assured of it,” said Howard; “you would hardly guess it from some of the things he says to me.  It’s awful, but he can’t be checked—­and yet he never oversteps the line, somehow.”

“He’s a queer boy,” said Maud.  “The way he talked to the Archdeacon the other day was simply fearful; but the Archdeacon only laughed, and said to papa afterwards that he envied him his son.  The Archdeacon was giggling half the afternoon; he felt quite youthful, he said.”

“It’s the greatest gift to be able to do that,” said Howard; “it’s a sort of fairy wand—­the pumpkin becomes a coach and four.”

“Jack’s right ear must be burning, I think,” said Maud, “and yet he never seems to want to know what anyone thinks about him.”

That was all the talk that Howard had with her at dinner.  After the ladies had gone, Mr. Sandys became very confidential about Jack’s prospects.

“I look upon you as a sort of relation, you see,” he said, “in fact I shall make bold to drop the Mr. and I hope you will do the same?  May we indeed take a bold step into intimacy and be ‘Howard’ and ‘Frank’ henceforth?  I can’t, of course, leave Jack a fortune, but when I die the two dear children will be pretty well off—­I may say that.  What do you think he had better go in for?  I should like him to take holy orders, but I don’t press it.  It brings one into touch with human beings, and I like that.  I find human beings very interesting—­I am not afraid of responsibility.”