pert Brooke, the coming poet, who
was to make men believe in the beauties of this earth, instead of
hankering after an immaterial hereafter; of the Elizabethan drama, of
Marlowe, Beaumont, Webster. They were very wonderful, those hours.
Gordon felt that he had at last, after wandering far, come to his
continuing city. Glancing back over his last two years, he used to laugh
and say:

"I don't regret them; I was happy; and the only thing to regret is
unhappiness. But I have outgrown them; they did not last. They were what
Stephen Phillips would number among the 'over-beautiful, quick fading
things.' They were good days, though. But I am happier now. I can see
the future spreading out before me. Next winter Hunter will be captain,
but I shall be second in the team and lead the forwards. It will be a
year of preparation. Then will come my year of captaincy. All the things
I wanted seem falling into my hands. 'Life is sweet, brother,' life is
sweet!"

And, looking back, it seemed as if in the wild orgy of Pack Monday Fair
he had finally burnt the old garments and put on the new. That day had
been the funeral pyre of his old life; and, like Sardanapalus, it had
died of its own free will. A glorious end; no anti-climax. But the
future was still more glorious. When he watched the morning sun flicker
white on the broad Eversham road from the station to the Abbey, the
leaves breaking on the lindens, the dim lights waking in the chapel on
Sunday, he saw how far he had outgrown his old self. Now he had begun to
perceive what life's aim should be--the search for beauty. Tester had
been right when he said that beauty was the only thing worth having, the
one ideal time could not tarnish. And yet Tester was not satisfied. The
hold of the world was too strong on him. He could see where others were
going wrong, but he himself was all astray, at times morbidly wretched,
at others hilarious with excitement. It was merely a question of
temperament. Gordon saw stretching before him the fulfilment of his
hopes. There was no niche for failure. His destiny would unroll smoothly
like a great machine; he was at peace, in sympathy with a world of
beautiful ideas and dreams. At times he would feel an unreasoning anger
with the Public School system, but his rage soon cooled down. After all,
it had left him at the last unscathed, and was in the future to bring
many gifts. Others might be broken on the wheel; but he was still
sufficiently an egoist,