A sort of awkwardness, grumpiness, gloom came into his eyes.

“Shall we move on... this beastly crowd...” he said.

So up they went, past the island.

The feathery white moon never let the sky grow dark; all night the chestnut blossoms were white in the green; dim was the cow-parsley in the meadows.

The waiters at Trinity must have been shuffling china plates like cards, from the clatter that could be heard in the Great Court.  Jacob’s rooms, however, were in Neville’s Court; at the top; so that reaching his door one went in a little out of breath; but he wasn’t there.  Dining in Hall, presumably.  It will be quite dark in Neville’s Court long before midnight, only the pillars opposite will always be white, and the fountains.  A curious effect the gate has, like lace upon pale green.  Even in the window you hear the plates; a hum of talk, too, from the diners; the Hall lit up, and the swing-doors opening and shutting with a soft thud.  Some are late.

Jacob’s room had a round table and two low chairs.  There were yellow flags in a jar on the mantelpiece; a photograph of his mother; cards from societies with little raised crescents, coats of arms, and initials; notes and pipes; on the table lay paper ruled with a red margin—­an essay, no doubt—­“Does History consist of the Biographies of Great Men?” There were books enough; very few French books; but then any one who’s worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, with extravagant enthusiasm.  Lives of the Duke of Wellington, for example; Spinoza; the works of Dickens; the Faery Queen; a Greek dictionary with the petals of poppies pressed to silk between the pages; all the Elizabethans.  His slippers were incredibly shabby, like boats burnt to the water’s rim.  Then there were photographs from the Greeks, and a mezzotint from Sir Joshua—­all very English.  The works of Jane Austen, too, in deference, perhaps, to some one else’s standard.  Carlyle was a prize.  There were books upon the Italian painters of the Renaissance, a Manual of the Diseases of the Horse, and all the usual text-books.  Listless is the air in an empty room, just swelling the curtain; the flowers in the jar shift.  One fibre in the wicker arm-chair creaks, though no one sits there.

Coming down the steps a little sideways [Jacob sat on the window-seat talking to Durrant; he smoked, and Durrant looked at the map], the old man, with his hands locked behind him, his gown floating black, lurched, unsteadily, near the wall; then, upstairs he went into his room.  Then another, who raised his hand and praised the columns, the gate, the sky; another, tripping and smug.  Each went up a staircase; three lights were lit in the dark windows.