So Kingston was driven in upon himself, and, by the time he came of age, had ardently discovered all the paradoxes that more fortunate people come to in due time at twenty-five or so, and then are able to take as platitudes. The injustice of wealth, the iniquities of sport, of religion, of land-tenure--all these crimes Kingston Darnley felt to be his own particular revelation, and they fermented in his mind until he had few thoughts in common with his fellows. They, meanwhile, went placidly on their way, and when Kingston arrived at Oxford, he found himself a stranger and misplaced among the men of his own years. He was filled at first with a gnawing, cavilling discontent that arose as much from idleness and opulence as from too rapid and unhealthy growth. They, for their part, were honest, jolly fellows, who looked on discontent as an uncomfortable and ‘bad-form’ thing, to be strenuously frowned and jeered out of their circle. To enjoy what came, without analysis, was their scheme, and they resented being asked to inquire into the reasonableness and the morality of their enjoyment. At one-and-twenty no really sane creature wants to think. The time for thought comes later, when the first ardours of action are passing. Kingston Darnley, though he had far too much sense and geniality to preach or impose his ideas on anyone, was felt to be always suggesting questions, never to be accepting the joy of the moment, in a properly acquiescent, youthful manner. And nothing is more annoying to the hedonist, of whatever age, than the companionship of someone who seems to be examining the sources of his joy. It may be that no joys can stand the test of reason, and the hedonist’s dislike of the sceptic may gain its intensity from the hedonist’s own unacknowledged realization of the fact. Even when Kingston got drunk his tone of mind seemed analytical, far removed from the frank, bellowing joyousness of the more healthy enthusiasts round him. They sat about in the Quad and howled, or beat baths beneath the windows of the junior Dean; Kingston, anxious to please, howled and beat baths with the best. But, whereas the ebullition was pure nature and joy of living with them, with him it was always an assumption, a pose, no matter how carefully assumed and disguised. And the consciousness of this was no less galling to him than to them. All felt ill at ease, disconcerted, disillusioned by his presence. His well-intentioned hilarity seemed somehow to turn the gold of their pleasure to brass, to strike a jarring note in the chorale of enjoyment they were playing so whole-heartedly. So, though never unpopular, Kingston Darnley was isolated. His own set in the college did not want to be bothered with the iniquitous why and wherefore of the game-laws, or the manifest impossibility of miracles; and the other sets to whom he would have brought these discoveries in glad pride had grown accustomed to them long ago, and for many years