Don't deny it, Sir. Have I not suffered all the pangs, with
just a week before the final ordeal? This is your final, I believe?"
"I hope so," said Mr. Dunn somewhat ruefully.
"Yes, yes, and a very fine career, a career befitting your father's
son. And I sincerely trust, Sir, that as your career has been marked by
honour, your exit shall be with distinction; and all the more that I am
not unaware of your achievements in another department of--ah--shall I
say endeavour. I have seen your name, Sir, mentioned more than once,
to the honour of our university, in athletic events." At this point Mr.
Rae's face broke into a smile.
An amazing smile was Mr. Rae's; amazing both in the suddenness of
its appearing and in the suddenness of its vanishing. Upon a face of
supernatural gravity, without warning, without beginning, the smile,
broad, full and effulgent, was instantaneously present. Then equally
without warning and without fading the smile ceased to be. Under its
effulgence the observer unfamiliar with Mr. Rae's smile was moved, to a
responsive geniality of expression, but in the full tide of this emotion
he found himself suddenly regarding a face of such preternatural gravity
as rebuked the very possibility or suggestion of geniality. Before the
smile Mr. Rae's face was like a house, with the shutters up and the
family plunged in gloom.
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