Paul himself that night, whose soul's welfare was already so great a trouble to so may diverse persons, was, almost for the first time, not thinking of religion at all. To his lips the gods were early lifting the immortal chalice in whose draught lies utter bitterness. That which had been to him a kind of visionary thing, a holy grail floating on light between heaven and earth, had taken form between his hands. He had, indeed, hoped for something one day of the sort, but not that the laurel leaves should be plucked for his head before he had even taken his degree. True, they were as yet in shadow rather than in substance, but others were seeing that crowning shadow even more than he. He was by this time in his last year, in the first autumn term of it, and that very term a firm of publishers had accepted his first book of poems. Tressor's name had brought it within the range of practical politics, but since then one or two critics had read the boy's verse and offered the usual qualified praise. But in the qualifications ran a sincere note. It had impressed the publishers. They had consented to publish at their own expense, and had even offered a royalty after a sale which they had estimated at the outside possible probability. For Paul's first cheque bugles should blow--in fairyland. But then Paul was already in fairyland. Manning had suggested that the success of "The Literary Lounge" warranted an annual dinner, and Donaldson had added the corollary that this triumph of the club's first president ought to be celebrated in town. The idea suggested, it had seemed obvious and inevitable. Term over, Paul had gone down to Manning's home in Oxfordshire for a fortnight or so, and now both had come up together for the celebration. Paul was Manning's guest at the Balmoral for the night, and a private dining-room had been engaged at an hotel on the river side of the Strand. Finally, that there should be no lack of glory, Tressor himself was the guest of the evening. The evening Manning and Paul arrived there was a wonderful sunset, as if the heaven itself would fling an earnest of the boy's success across the world. From the Strand, the great golden glow seemed to burn behind the Admiralty Arch, far off, behind the Park and the great Palace. The spire of St. Martin's and the incredible globe on the top of the Coliseum caught its radiance, and, looking east, the whole façade of the busy street shone with that unimaginable radiance. The great central column of the Square burgeoned black and monstrous against it. Whitehall was an avenue of glory washed with fairy gold.