After the meal he was taken to the study, a long room with books all round the walls, ponderous books, blue books, year after year of reports of learned institutions; reproductions of Italian pictures; photographs of Mrs. Smallman on the mantelpiece, a photograph of Mrs. Smallman on the desk. René was given a large chair and a small cigar, which he began to smoke before he realized what he was doing. He rarely smoked, did not care for it, and presently he dropped the cigar into the fireplace. The Professor stood looking out of the window. Two of the children were playing under the plum-tree. The feeling of being thrust out assailed René. The Professor turned:
"He deserted my mother a long time ago. He came back. My brother's married."
"I see. So you're the only possible breadwinner. Any work in your father? How old is he?"
"I don't know how old he is. But work? No."
"It's bad luck, but it often happens. I've had to keep my father since he was fifty. What about your family? The name's well known in Thrigsby."
So Professor Smallman was the boy his father remembered! René gained confidence. It was something to know that his experience was not singular.
"They did help until my father came back. They won't now, and I don't want them to. They don't understand the pain of receiving charity uncharitably given. They call it ingratitude."
"So have I mine," said René, astonished at his own boldness.
"Your work's good," said the Professor. "Tweeddale's reports of you were always excellent. As you know, I don't come in touch with men until their third year, and then only if they're good. You can take that from me. I must tell you--it wouldn't be fair not to--that one doesn't know in the least how good you are going to be. One has an uncertainty about you. In a way, that's all to the good. I like what you've written for the _Post_. So does Pigott the editor. What about journalism? Do you write easily?"
"It rather scotches that, then. Pupils? You could make a little that way, but it's drudging work when you're reading as well. I could give you two first-year men, pretty bad, both of them, and Miss Brock, the girl you met at lunch, has a young brother who can't get through the matric. That's as much as you could manage."