the labyrinth, would somehow
help him to escape the consequences of his misdeeds.

Born a Catholic, his instinctive attitude toward the established order
of things was that of a dissenter. Yet here were religion and learning
coming back, and not in vain, to claim their penny of tribute. He had
defied the authority of the Church, and had nevertheless accepted her
doctrine of the sanctity of marriage; he had scorned the College, and
now he turned by preference to one of her representatives, influenced,
in spite of prejudice and disillusioning experience, by respect for her
ideals. There she loomed, seeming monolithic in her solidity, a part
of the rock on which she was built, her windows sending out shafts of
light into the surrounding darkness, an allegory in stone.

As he passed the windows, he saw within characteristic glimpses of
college life. Half a dozen students were gathered about a fireplace
with their pipes, clothed in every variety of garment from the sweater
or bath-robe to the evening dress of one who had dropped in for a chat
on his way to a dance. In another room a game of cards was in
progress; in still a third a thoughtful plodder sat close to his shaded
lamp, his head resting upon his hand, an open book before him.
Somewhere above he heard a piano played with brilliancy and dash, and
the rollicking chorus of the college song:--

Then we 'll drink to old St. George,
(By George!)
Then we 'll drink to our valiant knight,
With his trusty spear,
And never a fear,
And the dragon pinned down tight, tight, tight,
And the dragon pinned down tight!

Emmet listened to the refrain with a curious mixture of envy and
contempt. Many a time these fellows had taken his car and discussed
football news with him, but at no time, in his hearing, had their
conversation indicated intellectual interests or risen even to the
level of the socialistic problems that were dear to his heart. He had
yet to learn more of college life than is disclosed by the sporting
clique to a street-car conductor; but with characteristic
self-assurance he thought he had penetrated to the very heart of the
machine. The quiet and unobtrusive student, the leaven of the loaf,
the future poet or statesman, had never attracted his attention or that
of men of his kind. They saw only what was on the surface. It was the
froth of college life that gave him a not unwelcome excuse to form
caustic generalisations upo