orthodoxies; and beside him his widowed sister, a nervous and rather
featureless lady who was helping him to receive. The guest of the
evening had not yet appeared.

Mr. Sorell, in a master's gown, stood talking with a man, also in a
master's gown, but much older than himself, a man with a singular
head--both flat and wide--scanty reddish hair, touched with grey, a
massive forehead, pale blue eyes, and a long pointed chin. Among the
bright colours of so many of the gowns around him--the yellow and red of
the doctors of law, the red and black of the divines, the red and white
of the musicians--this man's plain black was conspicuous. Every one who
knew Oxford knew why this eminent scholar and theologian had never
become a doctor of divinity. The University imposes one of her few
remaining tests on her D.D's; Mr. Wenlock, Master of Beaumont, had never
been willing to satisfy it, so he remained undoctored. When he preached
the University sermon he preached in the black gown; while every
ambitious cleric who could put a thesis together could flaunt his red
and black in the Vice-Chancellor's procession on Sundays in the
University church. The face was one of mingled irony and melancholy, and
there came from it sometimes the strangest cackling laugh.

"Well, you must show me this phoenix," he was saying in a nasal voice to
Sorell, who had been talking eagerly. "Young women of the right sort are
rare just now."

"What do you call the right sort, Master?"

"Oh, my judgment doesn't count. I only ask to be entertained."

"Well, talk to her of Rome, and see if you are not pleased."