He knew, of course, pretty much what it was, and with a sudden impulse he felt that he would have given worlds to break through it and talk frankly with this man whom he revered beyond all others, wide as was the intellectual difference between them.

But the tutor's reticence and the younger man's respect prevented it.
When the unlucky second class was actually proclaimed to the world, Langham took it to heart perhaps more than either Elsmere or his mother.
No one knew better than he what Elsmere's gifts were.

It was absurd that he should not have made more of them in sight of the public.

'_Le clericalisme, voila l'ennemi!_' was about the gist of Langham's mood during the days that followed on the class list.
Elsmere, however, did not divulge his intention of taking Orders to him till ten days afterward, when he had carried off Langham to stay at Harden, and he and his old tutor were smoking in his mother's little garden one moonlit night.
When he had finished his statement Langham stood still a moment, watching the wreaths of smoke as they curled and vanished.

The curious interest in Elsmere's career, which during a certain number of months had made him almost practical, almost energetic, had disappeared.