Boreham wanted to say, "Be damned with your _raisonné_," but he limited himself to saying: "Can't you get some college chaplain, or some bloke of the sort to do it?" "All are thick busy," said Bingham--"those that are left." "It must be a new experience for them," said Boreham. "There are plenty of new experiences going," said Bingham. "And you won't deny," said Boreham, smiling the smile of self-righteousness, as he tried to assume a calm bantering tone, "that experience--of life, I mean--is a bit lacking in Oxford?" "It depends on what you mean," said Bingham, sweetly. "We haven't the experience of making money here. Also Oxford Dons are expected to go about with the motto 'Pereunt et imputantur' written upon our brows (see the sundial in my college), 'The hours pass and we must give an account of them.'" Bingham always translated his Latin, however simple, for Boreham's benefit. Just now this angered Boreham. "This motto," continued Bingham, "isn't for ornament but for an example. In short, my dear man, we avoid what I might call, for want of a more comprehensive term, the Pot-house Experience of life." Boreham threw back his head. "Well, you'll take the job, will you?" and Bingham released his arm. "Can't you get one of those elderly ladies who frequent lectures during their lifetime to do the job?" "We may be reduced to that," said Bingham, "but even they are busy. It's a nice job," he added enticingly. "I know what it will be like," grunted Boreham, and he hesitated. If May Dashwood had been staying on in Oxford it would have been different, but she was going away. So Boreham hesitated. "Telephone me this evening, will you?" said Bingham. "Very well," said Boreham. "I'll see what I have got on hand, and if I have time----" and so the two men parted. Boreham got into his gig with a heavy heart and drove back to Chartcote. How he hated the avenue that cut him off from the world outside. How he hated the clean smell of the country that came into his windows. How he hated to see the moon, when it glinted at him from between the tops of trees. He longed for streets, for the odour of dirt and of petrol and of stale-cooked food. The noise of London soothed him, the jostling of men and women; he hungered for it. And yet he did not love those human beings. He knew their weaknesses, their superstitions, their follies, their unreason! Boreham remembered a much over-rated Hebrew (possibly only a mythical figure) who once said to His followers that when they prayed they should say: "Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." He got out of his gig slowly. "I don't forgive them," he said, and, unconscious of his own sins, he walked up the steps into his lonely house. CHAPTER XXIII BY MOONLIGHT