He paused for a moment, saw that he was belated, and finished his
soup hastily.

"Yes," said Howard, "of course that is the real problem of
education--to give a standard, and not to extinguish the taste for
intellectual things, which is too often what we contrive to do."

"Now we must not be too serious all at once," said Mrs. Graves. "If
we exhaust ourselves about education, we shall have nothing to fall
back upon--we shall be afraid to condescend. I am deplorably ill-
educated myself. I have no standard whatever. I have to consult
dear Jane, have I not? Jane is my intellectual touchstone, and
saves me from entire collapse."

"Well, well," said Mr. Sandys good-humouredly, "Mr. Kennedy and I
will fight it out together sometime. He will forgive an old
Pembroke man for wanting to know what is going forward; for
scenting the battle afar off, in fact."

Mr. Sandys found no lack of subjects to descant upon; but voluble,
and indeed absurd as he was, Howard could not help liking him; he
was a good fellow, he could see, and managed to diffuse a geniality
over the scene. "I am interested in most things," he said, at the
end of a breathless harangue, "and there is something in the
presence of a real live student, from the forefront of the
intellectual battle, which rouses all my old activities--stimulates
them, in fact. This will be a memorable evening for me, Mr.
Kennedy, and I have abundance of things to ask you." He did indeed
ask a good many things, but he was content to answer them himself.
Once indeed, in the course of an immense tirade, in which Mr.