of reflection and retrospect came over him. What an easy, full,
lively existence his was! He seemed to himself to be perfectly
contented. He remembered how he, the only son of rather elderly
parents, had gone through Winchester with mild credit. He had never
had any difficulties to contend with, he thought. He had been
popular, not distinguished at anything--a fair athlete, a fair
scholar, arousing no jealousies or enmities. He had been naturally
temperate and self-restrained. He had drifted on to Beaufort as a
Scholar, and it had been the same thing over again--no ambitions,
no failures, friends in abundance. Then his father had died, and it
had been so natural for him, on being elected to a Fellowship, just
to carry on the same life; he had to settle to work at once, as his
mother was not well off and much invalided. She had not long
survived his father. He had taught, taken pupils, made a fair
income. He had had no break of travel, no touch with the world;
a few foreign tours in the company of an old friend had given
him nothing but an emotional tincture of recollections and
associations--a touch of varnish, so to speak. Suddenly the
remembrance of some of the things which Jack Sandys had said that
morning came back to him; "real things" the boy had said, so
lightly and yet so decisively. He wondered; had he himself ever had
any touch with realities at all? He had been touched by no
adversity or tragedy, he had been devastated by no disappointed
ambitions, shattered by no emotions. His whole life had been
perfectly under his control, and he had grown into a sort of
contempt for all unbalanced people, who were run away with by their
instincts or passions. It had been a very comfortable, sheltered,
happy life; he was sure of that; he had enjoyed his work, his
relations with others, his friendships; but had he ever come near
to any fulness of living at all? Was it not, when all was said and