n for a chat. He received them with elaborate
courtesy and insisted on their sitting in the only two comfortable chairs
in the room. Though he did not drink himself, with a politeness of which
Philip recognised the irony, he put a couple of bottles of beer at
Hayward's elbow, and he insisted on lighting matches whenever in the heat
of argument Hayward's pipe went out. At the beginning of their
acquaintance Hayward, as a member of so celebrated a university, had
adopted a patronising attitude towards Weeks, who was a graduate of
Harvard; and when by chance the conversation turned upon the Greek
tragedians, a subject upon which Hayward felt he spoke with authority, he
had assumed the air that it was his part to give information rather than
to exchange ideas. Weeks had listened politely, with smiling modesty, till
Hayward finished; then he asked one or two insidious questions, so
innocent in appearance that Hayward, not seeing into what a quandary they
led him, answered blandly; Weeks made a courteous objection, then a
correction of fact, after that a quotation from some little known Latin
commentator, then a reference to a German authority; and the fact was
disclosed that he was a scholar. With smiling ease, apologetically, Weeks
tore to pieces all that Hayward had said; with elaborate civility he
displayed the superficiality of his attainments. He mocked him with gentle
irony. Philip could not help seeing that Hayward looked a perfect fool,
and Hayward had not the sense to hold his tongue; in his irritation, his
self-assurance undaunted, he attempted to argue: he made wild statements
and Weeks amicably corrected them; he reasoned falsely and Weeks proved
that he was absurd: Weeks confessed that he had taught Greek Literature at
Harvard. Hayward gave a laugh of scorn.

"I might have known it. Of course you read Greek like a schoolmaster," he
said. "I read it like a poet."

"And do you find it more poetic when you don't quite know what it means?
I thought it was only in revealed religion that a mistranslation improved
the sense."

At last, having finished the beer, Hayward left Weeks' room hot and
dishevelled; with an angry gesture he said to Philip:

"Of course the man's a pedant. He has no real feeling for beauty. Accuracy
is the virtue of clerks. It's the spirit of the Greeks that we aim at.
Weeks is like that fellow who went to hear Rubenstein and complained that
he played false notes. False notes! What did they mat