Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/172

THE IVORY TOWER as the highest joys, really appealed to Gray, to all appearance, in the sense in which Roulet regarded, or pretended to regard, them—once he could have pictures and music and talk, which meant of course pleasant people, thrown in. He could go in for such things on his means—ready as he was to do all his travelling on foot (I wanted as much then to do all mine on horseback,) and to go to the opera or the play in the shilling seats when he couldn't go in the stalls. I loathed so everything but the stalls—the stalls everywhere in life—that if I couldn't have it that way I didn't care to have it at all. So when I think it strikes me I must have liked him very much not to have wanted to slay him—for I don't remember having given way at any particular moment to threats or other aggressions. That may have been because I felt he rather extravagantly liked me—as I shouldn't at all wonder at his still doing. At the same time if I had found him beyond a certain point objectionable his showing he took me for anything wonderful would have been, I think," the young man reflected, "but an aggravation the more. However that may be, I'm bound to say, I shan't in the least resent his taking me for whatever he likes now—if he can at all go on with it himself I shall be able to hold up my end. The dream of my life, if you must know all, dear—the dream of my life has been to be admired, really admired, admired for all he's worth, by some 158