slightly backward, and his smile might have seemed almost inane in its
width and in the impression of permanency which it conveyed, were it
not for the intellectuality of the brow, the force of the fine aquiline
nose, and the watchful perspicacity of the deepset eyes.

"This is Doctor Renshaw, I believe," said Leigh tentatively.

"Doctor Renshaw is here," returned the other, indicating by a slight
gesture a figure seated at the far end of the table, which now arose
and came toward them. "Doctor, I venture to assume that I have the
pleasure of making you acquainted with Mr. Leigh, our new professor of
mathematics."

His words were distinctly spoken, but pitched in so low a tone that
they produced an odd effect, as of purring.

It was now that Leigh discovered his mistake. The man whom he had
taken for the president was Bishop Wycliffe, and it required but five
minutes of conversation to show him that the bishop, not the president,
was the significant personality.

Doctor Renshaw might have been anywhere in the afternoon of life, and
one felt instinctively that his sunset had antedated his meridian. He
was like those ancients, spoken of with such disapproval by Cicero, who
began to be old men early that they might continue to be old men for a
long time. His value to the institution he had served so long, and his
safety in his position, lay in the possession of negative qualities.
His silence was interpreted as an indication of wisdom, and the firmly
cut features of his inscrutable face would have served an artist as a
personification of discipline. As he exchanged the conventional