“I wonder if you really are the old snob you try to make yourself,” said Michael. “And yet I don’t think it is snobbishness. I believe it’s a form of collecting. It’s a throw back to primitive life in a private school. One day in your fourth year you’ll give a dinner party for about twelve bloods and I shall come too and remind you just when and how and where you picked them all up before their value was perfectly obvious. Partly of course it’s due to being at Eton where you had nothing to do but observe social distinction in the making and talk about Burne-Jones to your tutor.” “My dear fellow,” said Wedderburn deeply, “I have these people up to my rooms because I like them.” “But it is convenient always to like the right people,” Michael argued. “There are lots of others just as pleasant whom you don’t like. For instance, Avery——” “Avery!” Wedderburn snorted. “He’s not likely ever to be captain of the ‘Varsity Eleven,” said Michael. “But he’s amusing, and he can talk about books.” “Patronizing ass,” Wedderburn growled. “That’s exactly what he isn’t,” Michael contradicted. “Damnable poseur,” Wedderburn rumbled. “Oh, well, so are you,” said Michael. He thought how willfully Wedderburn would persist in misjudging Avery. Yet himself had spent most delightful hours with him. To be sure, his sensitiveness made him sharp-tongued, and he dressed rather too well. But all the Carthusians at St. Mary’s dressed rather too well and carried about with them the atmosphere of a week-end in a sporting country-house owned by very rich people. This burbling prosperity would gradually trickle away, Michael thought, and he began to follow the course of Avery four years hence directed by Oxford to—to what? To some distinguished goal of art, but whether as writer or painter or sculptor he did not know, Avery was so very versatile. Michael mentally put him on one side to decorate a conspicuous portion of the ideal edifice he dreamed of creating from his Oxford society. There was Lonsdale. Lonsdale really possessed the serene perfection of a great work of art. Michael thought to himself that almost he could bear to attend for ever Ardle’s dusty lectures on Cicero in order that for ever he might hear Lonsdale admit with earnest politeness that he had not found time to glance at the text the day before, that he was indeed sorry to cause Mr. Ardle such a mortification, but that unfortunately he had left his Plato in a sadler’s shop, where he had found it necessary to complain of a saddle newly made for him. “But I am lecturing on Cicero, Mr. Lonsdale. The Pro Milone was not delivered by Plato, Mr. Lonsdale.” “What’s he talking about?” Lonsdale whispered to Michael. “Nor was it delivered by Mr. Fane,” added the Senior Tutor dryly.