The very silence of the Hall, which impressed him now not so much by its beauty as by its solidity and height, invested the presiding genius of the place with something of sphinxlike mystery. The very faces of the gargoyles, impenetrable and calm, or grinningly grotesque, gave the fancy visible outward expression. One monster in particular, with twisted horns and impish tongue lolling forth between wide, inhuman teeth, seemed to look upon him with peculiar and malicious amusement. He experienced the spiritual depression which sometimes seems to emanate from inanimate things, that mood of self-distrust, that assurance of being unwelcome, which makes the coming to a strange city where one's fortunes are to be cast an act requiring courage. Seen close at hand, the college lost something of that inviting charm with which a distant view invested it. Though the length of the corporate life of the institution was not unimpressive from an American standpoint, the present building was comparatively recent. A thirty years' growth of ivy was scarcely able to atone for the unencrusted newness of the stones beneath. There was none of that narcotic suggestion of grey antiquity which in Oxford or Cambridge rebukes and stills a personal ambition. Beyond each small doorway he saw a flight of stone stairs vanishing into the obscurity, and through the open windows he caught glimpses of decorations on the walls, the flags and signs and photographs which everywhere represent the artistic standards of the average undergraduate. But a compensating surprise was presently in store. As he passed the tower, he heard the deep notes of a pipe organ; the open diapason and flutes of the great, the reeds of the swell, piled one upon another in a splendid harmony. He looked up and saw the lengthened windows that indicated the location of the chapel, which apparently extended the full height of the building. The musician within added a two-foot stop, the final needed element of brilliancy, crowning the edifice of sound his fingers had reared, so that now the music seemed to burst through the half-open windows and to shake the vines upon the wall. Lover of music as he was, this unexpected and triumphant symphony made a peculiar appeal to Leigh's imagination. Through it, as through a golden mist, he saw the drama of life sublimated, himself an actor of dignity and worth; and a few moments later he entered the president's office with a poise in which there remained no trace of anxious conjecture.