politician, was now Vice-Chancellor of the University; and the greater
luminary had come to shine upon the lesser, by way of heightening the
dignity of both. For the man who has outsoared his fellows likes to
remind himself by contrast of his callow days, before the hungry and
fighting impulses had driven him down--a young eaglet--upon the
sheepfolds of law and politics; while to the majority of mankind, even
to-day, hero-worship, when it is not too exacting, is agreeable.

So all Oxford had been bidden. The great hall of St. Hubert's, with its
stately portraits and its emblazoned roof, had been adorned with flowers
and royally lit up. From the hills round Oxford the "line of festal
light" made by its Tudor windows, in which gleamed the escutcheons of
three centuries, could have been plainly seen. The High Street was full
of carriages, and on the immaculate grass of the great quadrangle,
groups of the guests, the men in academic costume, the women in the
airiest and gayest of summer dresses, stood to watch the arrivals. The
evening was clear and balmy; moonrise and dying day disputed the sky;
and against its pale blue still scratched over with pale pink shreds and
wisps of cloud, the grey college walls, battlemented and flecked with
black, rose warmed and transfigured by that infused and golden summer in
which all, Oxford lay bathed. Through open gateways there were visions
of green gardens, girdled with lilacs and chestnuts; and above the
quadrangle towered the crocketed spire of St. Mary's, ethereally
wrought, it seemed, in ebony and silver, the broad May moon behind it.
Within the hall, the guests were gathering fast. The dais of the high
table was lit by the famous candelabra bequeathed to the college under
Queen Anne; a piano stood ready, and a space had been left for the
college choir who were to entertain the party. In front of the dais in
academic dress stood the Vice-Chancellor, a thin, silver-haired man,
with a determined mouth, such as befitted the champion of a hundred