“But Mr. Leeming is satisfied, and so am I, that if you chose to make an effort, and take a . . . a healthy interest in things, we might do some good with you. You might win scholarships, and be a credit to the school. That’s what we want. That’s what your parents sent you here for. Now . . . now Mr. Leeming tells me that you aspire to becoming a priest of the church. . . .” “No, sir.” “No . . .? But Mr. Leeming told me he had talked the matter over with you?” “He mentioned it, sir . . . but I didn’t say anything. I . . . don’t think I do want to, sir.” The Head frowned. “You mean that you don’t feel worthy of so great a vocation? Well, you’re young. You’re a promising boy. I want to do what is best for you . . . and the school. At the end of this term you are likely to get a move, and after a certain time I don’t think, from the scholarship point of view, you can begin to specialise too early. You have shown a certain . . . aptitude for English. You might read History. You might stick to Classics. What do you think about it?” “I should like to read History, sir.” “Very well, I’ll write to your father about it. We won’t say anything more about the Church for the present. That will come later. I expect Mr. Leeming will talk it over with you. You may go now.” CHAPTER VII IMPURITY I THE “little chat”—as Mr. Leeming would certainly have called it—did not take place for a long time, for the reverend gentleman’s mind had become exercised with a problem of greater importance than the devotion of Edwin. It wasn’t exactly his fault. Mr. Leeming was a bachelor. He was now in his forty-third year. Naturally endowed with an intense shyness of disposition which the forced publicity of his two professions, in the pulpit and the Classroom, had overlaid with a veneer of suave assurance, he was none the less a man of ardent, if timid passions. He himself had always been aware of this powerful sensual element in his nature. With a certain degree of courage he had subjected it to a deliberate mortification. Obstinately he had fitted his body to the Procrustean couch that his conscience recommended: obstinately, and in a degree successfully. Not quite successfully . . . for his original appetites were unwieldy, and if they had been coerced in one direction they had undoubtedly and demonstrably overflowed in another, as witnessed the growing expanse of his waistcoat.