The Mayor of Warwick | Page 4

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.
A figure rose to greet him as he entered, and though he was himself a
tall man, the other loomed above him in the comparative twilight of the
room, until he seemed to assume colossal proportions. Then Leigh
realized that it was not the height of the man, but his bearing, that gave
such significance to the inch or two between them. His grey hair alone
suggested years; he held his shoulders like a man of forty. He removed
his glasses deliberately, put them on the pile of papers beside him, and
stood waiting. There was a courteous enquiry in his very attitude,
although as yet he spoke no word. His head was tilted slightly
backward, and his smile might have seemed almost inane in its width
and in the impression of permanency which it conveyed, were it not for
the intellectuality of the brow, the force of the fine aquiline nose, and
the watchful perspicacity of the deepset eyes.
"This is Doctor Renshaw, I believe," said Leigh tentatively.
"Doctor Renshaw is here," returned the other, indicating by a slight
gesture a figure seated at the far end of the table, which now arose and
came toward them. "Doctor, I venture to assume that I have the
pleasure of making you acquainted with Mr. Leigh, our new professor

of mathematics."
His words were distinctly spoken, but pitched in so low a tone that they
produced an odd effect, as of purring.
It was now that Leigh discovered his mistake. The man whom he had
taken for the president was Bishop Wycliffe, and it required but five
minutes of conversation to show him that the bishop, not the president,
was the significant personality.
Doctor Renshaw might have been anywhere in the afternoon of life,
and one felt instinctively that his sunset had antedated his meridian. He
was like those ancients, spoken of with such disapproval by Cicero,
who began to be old men early that they might continue to be old men
for a long time. His value to the institution he had served so long, and
his safety in his position, lay in the possession of negative qualities. His
silence was interpreted as an indication of wisdom, and the firmly cut
features of his inscrutable face would have served an artist as a
personification of discipline. As he exchanged the conventional
greetings the occasion demanded, he might even then have been
standing for the portrait of himself that was one day to be added to
those of his predecessors on the library wall; or he might have been one
of the portraits already there that had stepped from its frame for a
moment to take the newcomer by the hand.
In short, the thing of greatest significance in this meeting, the thing
which made itself felt by all three participants,