little rest.”
He broke out in his laugh. “Do you think I want to go and lie down awhile, like a lady before a party?”
“I'm sure you'd be the stronger for it,” said Mrs. Saintsbury. “But go, upon any theory. Don't you see there isn't a Senior left?”
He would not look round. “They've gone to other spreads,” he said. “But now I'll tell you: it is pretty, near time, and if you'll take me to my room, I'll go.”
“You're a spoiled boy,” said Mrs. Saintsbury.
“But I want Mrs. Pasmer to see the room of a real student—a reading man, and all that—and we'll come, to humour you.”
“Well, come upon any theory,” said young Mavering.
His father, and Professor Saintsbury, who had been instructed by his wife not to lose sight of her, were at hand, and they crossed to that old hall which keeps its favour with the students in spite of the rivalry of the newer dormitories—it would be hard to say why.
Mrs. Pasmer willingly assented to its being much better, out of pure complaisance, though the ceilings were low and the windows small, and it did not seem to her that the Franklin stove and the aesthetic papering and painting of young Mavering's room brought it up to the level of those others that she had seen. But with her habit of saying some friendly lying thing, no matter what her impressions were, she exclaimed; “Oh, how cosy!” and glad of the word, she went about from one to another, asking, “Isn't this cosy?”
Mrs. Saintsbury said: “It's supposed to be the cell of a recluse; but it is cosy—yes.”
“It looks as if some hermit had been using it as a store-room,” said her husband; for there were odds and ends of furniture and clothes and boxes and handbags scattered about the floor.
“I forgot all about them when I asked you,” cried Mavering, laughing out his delight. “They belong to some fellows that are giving spreads in their rooms, and I let them put them in here.”
“Do you commonly let people put things in your room that they want to get rid off?”
Prev.
Back
Top