mselves in secret,
simple ways, unknown to his most intimate friends.

This man's personality it was which, like the branch of healing on
bitter waters, presently started in Jacob Delafield's nature obscure
processes of growth and regeneration. The originator of them knew little
of what was going on. He was Delafield's tutor for Greats, in the
ordinary college routine; Delafield took essays to him, and occasionally
lingered to talk. But they never became exactly intimate. A few
conversations of "pith and moment"; a warm shake of the hand and a keen
look of pleasure in the blue eyes of the recumbent giant when, after one
year of superhuman but belated effort, Delafield succeeded in obtaining
a second class; a little note of farewell, affectionate and regretful,
when Delafield left the university; an occasional message through a
common friend--Delafield had little more than these to look back upon,
outside the discussions of historical or philosophical subjects which
had entered into their relation as pupil and teacher.

And now the paralyzed tutor was dead, leaving behind him a volume of
papers on classical subjects, the reputation of an admirable scholar,
and the fragrance of a dear and honored name. His pupils had been many;
they counted among the most distinguished of England's youth; and all of
them owed him much. Few people thought of Delafield when the list of
them was recited; and yet, in truth, Jacob's debt was greater than any;
for he owed this man nothing less than his soul.

No doubt the period at Oxford had been rather a period of obscure
conflict than of mere idleness and degeneracy, as it had seemed to be.
But it might easily have ended in physical and moral ruin, and, as it
was--thanks to Courtenay--Delafield went out to the business of life, a
man singularly master of himself, determined to live his own life for
his own ends.

In the first place, he was conscious, like many other young men of his
time, of a strong repulsion towards the complexities and artificialities
of modern society. As in the forties, a time of social stir was rising
out of a time of stagnation. Social settlements were not yet founded,
but the experiments which led to them were beginning. Jacob looked at
the life of London, the clubs and the country-houses, the normal life of
his class, and turned from it in aversion. He thought, sometimes, of
emigrating, in search of a new heaven and a new earth, as men emigrated
in the forties.