The Mayor of Warwick | Page 8

community of specialised
interests were the opposite of those he had encountered in the West,
where a stranger was welcomed on the slim credentials of his
appearance.
Leigh had been told that the road to promotion led through the small
college, and he had taken that road hopefully; but now he felt like one
who had drifted into an eddy below the bank, while the great stream of
the national educational tendency went tossing and foaming past.
These unaccustomed circumstances gave an unwonted significance to
the simple occupation in which he was employed, and focussed his
mind expectantly upon the event which, in the fuller life he had left,
would have been accepted as a matter of course.
His preparations completed, he donned his overcoat and hat, and stood
looking from his window over the valley toward the west. The sun was
setting in an angry splendour that threatened storms, Even as he looked,
the wind attained increased velocity and began to whine and whistle
about the solid masonry of the tower. Leigh drew in the heavy, leaded
panes against the possible beating of the rain. He passed his fingers
lightly down the cold stone casement, thinking of its immense
thickness and of the beauty of its careful cutting. Never had he lived in
such rooms. His was an habitat fit for a prince of the Middle Ages, and

some glimpse of the fascination which this secluded life might come to
possess was given him at that moment. Evidently, Professor Cardington,
his neighbour across the hall, had felt it and succumbed; else how could
a man of his extraordinary talent have remained so long buried, as it
were, from the world?
Revolving this mystery in his mind, he passed into his sitting-room on
the eastern side of the building. It was pleasant to think that Cardington
was to accompany him to the bishop's, but as it was still too soon to call
for him, he stood for a few moments looking down upon the campus.
The giant shadow of the Hall had now crept to the verge of the plateau.
There was no human figure on its bleak expanse, but the small trees
which found scant nourishment in the rock beneath swayed gently in
the broken wind, like a line of sentries marking time. In the centre of
the line the flagpole sprang up, thin and white, lifting the stars and
stripes into the lurid light above the shadow. He could hear the
whipping of the halyards against the pole; but suddenly the sound
ceased, the flag began to flutter downward till its colours were
quenched, and only the gilded ball above now caught the sun's last rays.
Straining his gaze, he saw the janitor fold the flag on the grass and
carry it within. Then darkness seemed to fall like a canopy, beneath
which the lights of the city trembled into view.
A moment later he stood in Cardington's doorway, and looked with
relief upon the sight presented to his eyes. The flickering fire in the
grate, the bewildering congeries of books, statues, and furniture, were
doubly homelike by contrast with Leigh's late vision of the descending
night without. The old caretaker of the tower was wont to say that she
never knew a neater man than Professor Cardington, or a more
disorderly room than his. The accumulation of articles in the room
seemed to symbolise the owner's mental furniture, while his personal
neatness was a habit acquired during his stay at West Point, where he
had once occupied the chair of a modern language. There was a
suggestion of the soldier also in his unbending back as he sat at his
desk, so absorbed in his work that he did not at first look up to see who
had answered his invitation to enter.

The face he turned upon his visitor presently was stern and grey in
effect, like that of a man who has seen service. His blue eyes, though
pale in tone, were brilliant, as if the intellect behind them burned with
steady intensity and force. Nature had concealed his true quality behind
a baffling mask, for there was not a line in his face to hint of his
sensitive spirit, or of the humorous moods that swept over him in
unexpected gusts. Now his aspect brightened, as from a warmth within.
"Come in, Mr. Leigh," he cried cheerily. "Come in. I thought it was
some student who wished to ask me what use there was in studying
Latin. I am just outlining an article on the Roman Forum for the new
encyclopaedia. You might like to see Boni's latest contribution, and the
photographs I took myself last summer."
He reached for his meerschaum pipe, and paused to gaze with a
smoker's admiration at the red-brown perfection of