"2. Honestly, I see nothing bad in the play. It was beautiful, the colour and music bewitching, and the only fault, overmuch foolishness. But in the bar and lounge, one felt that the men about were mostly of the sort who are careless about their souls. Query: But what about a bump supper or a smoking carriage? "3. No, it has not helped my Christian life, but it has not, so far as I can see, hindered it. Indirectly, it has perhaps helped me, just as exercise, music, poetry and ordinary conversation, may be said to do. "_Note_. Honestly, I have never enjoyed myself more in all my life." Poor Paul! (5) But he was to enjoy himself still more that memorable term. Towards its close, as a scholar, he received an invitation to the big college Feast of St. Mary's, a commemoration to which some distinguished outsider was always invited and which celebrated itself with the aid of a classic menu and some historic music. Neither Strether nor Donaldson were asked, for neither had achieved scholarship fame, and Manning was separated from the fresher by an impassable gulf of table. Paul, in fact, sat between Judson and the wall farthest from the High Table. Judson, cox of his boat, was a genial person, but no particular friend of Paul's, and Judson, moreover, was frankly there to eat and drink. Paul functioned merely automatically in regard to these. It was the splendour, the glamour, that he feasted upon, and his imagination saw to it that neither lacked. Even the sheer beauty of the shining plate, the silver candelabra, the ancient hall and the glittering tables, touched, here and there, with the orange and yellow and green and gold of the piled dessert, was all but forgotten as he read his list of distinguished names, caught the gleam of ribbons across this and that shirt-front, listened to the clever short speeches, delighted in the historic music, shared, timidly, in the ceremonies of toast and loving-cup. He saw a world worth entering. He was intoxicated, though he drank no more than a shy glass of lemonade. If, in the dark shadowed gallery away from the bustling waiters, there lingered understanding spirits, as like as not Paul Kestern was the most entertaining person present. In the library, the great Tressor singled him out. "Well, Kestern," he said smiling, "what did you think of it all?" The boy looked at him gravely. "It was all rather wonderful to me, sir," he said. "It was a good feast, certainly," said the other. "By the way, I fear I can't get away from all this now, but I wanted to say a word to you about those verses of yours. They are very distinctly good, I think. The shortest is the best--_The Spent Day_. You'll do much better work, but in its own way, it's a perfect poem." Paul could hardly believe his ears. "It is awfully good of you to read them," he managed to say.