Both the parted lovers were wretched. Julia never complained, but drooped, and read the Psalms, and Edward detected her in tears over them.
He questioned her and obtained a lame account; she being far more bent on screening Alfred than on telling the truth.
Edward called on the other; and found him disconsolate, and reading a Heathen philosopher for comfort, and finding none. Edward questioned him, and he was reserved and even sulky. Sir Imperturbable persisted quietly, and he exploded, and out came his wrongs. Edward replied that he was a pretty fellow: wanted it all his own way. "Suppose my mother, with her present feelings, was to take a leaf out of your book, and use all her power; where would you be then? Come, old fellow, I know what love is, and one of us _shall_ have the girl he loves, unless any harm should come to my poor father owing to your blunder--oh, that would put it out of the question, I feel--but let us hope better. I pulled you out of the fire, and somehow I seem to like you better than ever after that; let me pull you out of this mess too.""Pull away," cried the impetuous youth. "I'll trust you with my life: ay, with more than my life, with my love; for you are the man for me: reason is always uppermost with you:
Give me the man that is not passion's slave, And I will wear him in my heart's core, ay----""Oh bother that. If you are in earnest, don't mouth, but put on your hat and come over."He assented; but in the middle of putting on his coat, made this little observation: "Now I see how wise the ancients were: yes, friendship is better than love; calmer, more constant, free from the heats and chills of that impetuous passion; its pure bosom is ruffled by none of love's jealousies and irritabilities. Solem e mundo tollunt qui tollunt amicitiam.""Oh bother quoting; come and shake hands with Julia." They went over;Mrs. Dodd was in the city. Edward ushered in Alfred, saying, "Here is the other Impetuosity;" and sagely retired for a few minutes. When he came back they were sitting hand in hand, he gazing on her, she inspecting the carpet. "That is all right," said Edward drily: "now the next thing is, you must go back to Oxford directly, and read for your first class."The proposal fell like a blight upon the reconciled lovers. But Edward gave potent reasons. The delays of law were endless: Alfred's defendant had already obtained one postponement of the trial on frivolous grounds.
Now the Oxford examination and Doncaster races come on at a fixed date, by a Law of Nature, and admit of no "postponement swindle." "You mark my words, you will get your class before you will get your trial, and it won't hurt you to go into court a first-class man: will it? And then you won't quarrel by letter, you two; I know. Come, will you do what I tell you: or is friendship but a name? eh, Mr. Bombast?" He ended with great though quiet force: "Come, you two, which is better, to part like the scissors, or part like the thread?"Similes are no arguments; that is why they convince people so: Alfred capitulated to the scissors and thread; and only asked with abnormal humility to be allowed to taste the joys of reconciliation for two days.
The third found him at Oxford; he called on the head of his college to explain what had prevented his return to Exeter in the October term twelve months ago, and asked for rooms. Instead of siding with a man of his own college so cruelly injured, the dignitary was alarmed by the bare accusation, and said he must consider: insanity was a terrible thing.
"So is false accusation, and so is false imprisonment," said Hardie bitterly.
"Unquestionably. But I have at present no means of deciding how far those words apply." In short, he could give no answer; must consult the other officers, and would convey the result by letter.
Alfred's pride was deeply mortified, not less by a certain cold repugnant manner than by the words. And there came over his heart a sickening feeling that he was now in the eyes of men an intellectual leper.
He went to another college directly, and applied to the vice-president, the vice-president sent him with a letter to the dean; the dean looked frightened; and told him hesitatingly the college was full; he might put his name down, and perhaps get in next year. Alfred retired, and learned from the porter that the college was not full. He sighed deeply, and the sickening feeling grew on him; an ineradicable stigma seemed upon him, and Mrs. Dodd was no worse than the rest of the world then; every mother in England would approve her resolutions. He wandered about the scenes of his intellectual triumphs: he stood in the great square of the schools, a place ugly to unprejudiced eyes, but withal somewhat grand and inspiring, especially to scholars who have fought their keen and bloodless battles there. He looked at the windows and gilt inscription of the Schola Metaphysices, in which he had met the scholars of his day and defeated them for the Ireland. He wandered into the theatre, and eyed the rostrum, whence he had not mumbled, but recited, his Latin prize poem with more than one thunder of academic applause: thunder compared with which Drury Lane's us a mere cracker. These places were unchanged; but he, sad scholar, wandered among them as if he was a ghost, and all these were stony phantoms of an intellectual past, never, never to return.
He telegraphed Sampson and Edward to furnish him with certificates that he had never been insane, but the victim of a foul conspiracy; and, when he received them, he went with them to St. Margaret's Hall; for he had bethought him that the new principal was a first-rate man, and had openly vowed he would raise that "refuge for the oft-times phoughed" to a place of learning.