PART II

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THE LONELY UNICORN

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

_FICTION_

THE LOOM OF YOUTH

PLEASURE

_STUDIES_

THE PRISONERS OF MAINZ

PUBLIC SCHOOL LIFE

[_In September_

_VERSE_

RESENTMENT: POEMS

[_Out of Print_

THE

LONELY UNICORN

A NOVEL

BY

ALEC WAUGH

AUTHOR OF "THE LOOM OF YOUTH"

[Illustration]

LONDON

GRANT RICHARDS LTD.

ST MARTIN'S STREET

MDCCCCXXII

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED

EDINBURGH

TO MY FRIEND

CLIFFORD BAX

CONTENTS

PART I.--THE OPENING ROUND

CHAPTER PAGE

I. TWO HAPHAZARDS 11

II. THE OUTCOME 20

III. RALPH AND APRIL 27

IV. A KISS 37

V. A POTENTIAL DIPLOMAT 45

VI. APRIL'S LOOKING-GLASS 58

VII. A SORRY BUSINESS 65

PART II.--THE RIVAL FORCES

VIII. A FORTUNATE MEETING 93

IX. HOGSTEAD 105

X. YOUNG LOVE 117

XI. THE ROMANCE OF VARNISH 137

XII. MARSTON & MARSTON 150

XIII. LILITH OF OLD 157

XIV. THE TWO CURRENTS 175

PART III.--THE FIRST ENCOUNTERS

XV. SUCCESS 187

XVI. LILITH AND MURIEL 217

PART IV.--ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

XVII. THREE YEARS 225

XVIII. THREE DAYS 232

XIX. THE LONELY UNICORN 253

XX. THERE'S ROSEMARY 269

XXI. THE SHREDDING OF THE CHRYSALIS 276

XXII. AN END AND A BEGINNING 292

PART I

THE OPENING ROUND

CHAPTER I

TWO HAPHAZARDS

It began, I suppose, on a certain September afternoon, when Roland

Whately travelled back to school by the three-thirty train from

Waterloo. There were two afternoon trains to Fernhurst: one left

London at three-thirty and arrived at a quarter to six; the other left

at four-eighteen, stopped at every station between Basingstoke and

Salisbury, waited twenty-five minutes at Templecombe for a connection,

and finally reached Fernhurst at eight-twenty-three. It is needless

to state that by far the greater part of the school travelled down by

the four-eighteen--who for the sake of a fast train and a comfortable

journey would surrender forty-eight minutes of his holidays?--and

usually, of course, Roland accompanied the many.

This term, however, the advantages of the fast train were considerable.

He was particularly anxious to have the corner bed in his dormitory.

There was a bracket above it where he could place a candle, by the

light of which he would be able to learn his rep. after "lights out."

If he were not there first someone else would be sure to collar it. And

then there was the new study at the end of the passage; he wanted to

get fresh curtains and probably a gas mantle: when once the school was

back it was impossible, for at least a week, to persuade Charlie, the

school custos, to attend to an odd job like that. And so he travelled

back by a train that contained, of the three hundred boys who were on

the Fernhurst roll, only a dozen fags and three timid Sixth-Formers who

had distrusted the animal spirits of certain powerful and irreverent

Fifth-Formers. On the first day, as on the last, privilege counts for

little, and it is unpleasant to pass four hours under the seat of a

dusty railway carriage.

It was the first time that Roland had been able to spend the first

evening of a term in complete leisure. He walked quietly up to the

house, went down to the matron's room and consulted the study and

dormitory lists. He found that he was on the Sixth-Form table, had

been given the study for which he had applied, and was in the right

dormitory. He bagged the bed he wanted, and took his health certificate

round to the Chief's study.

"Ah, Whately, this is very early. Had a good holiday?"

"Yes, thank you, sir."

"Feeling ready for football? They tell me you've an excellent chance of

getting into the XV.?"

"I hope so, sir."

He went over to the studies and inspected the gas fittings. Yes, he

would certainly need a new mantle, and he must try to see if Charlie

couldn't fit him up with a new curtain. After a brief deliberation

Charles decided that he could; a half-crown changed hands, and as Roland

strolled back from the lodge the Abbey clock struck half-past six. Over

two hours to prayers. He had done all his jobs, and there didn't seem

to be a soul in the place. He began to wonder whether, after all, it

had been worth his while to catch that early train: it had been a dull

journey, two hours in the company of three frightened fags, outhouse

fellows whom he didn't know, and who had huddled away in a corner of

the carriage and talked in whispers. If, on the other hand, he had

waited for the four-eighteen he would at that moment be sitting with

five or six first-class fellows, talking of last year's rags, of the

new prefects, and the probable composition of the XV. He would be much

happier there. And as for the dormitory and study, well, he'd have

probably been able to manage if he had hurried from the station. He had

done so a good many times before. Altogether he had made a bit of an ass

of himself. An impetuous fool, that was what he was.

And for want of anything better to do, he mouched down to Ruffer's, the

unofficial tuck-shop. There was no one he knew in the front of the shop,

so he walked into the inside room and found, sitting in a far corner,

eating an ice, Howard, one of the senior men in Morgan's.

"Hullo!" he said. "So you've been ass enough to come down by the early

train as well?"

"Yes, I was coming up from Cornwall, and it's the only way I could make

the trains fit in. A bad business. There's nothing to do but eat: come

and join me in an ice."

Howard was only a very casual acquaintance; he was no use at games; he

had never been in the same form as Roland, and fellows in the School

house usually kept pretty much to themselves. They had only met in

groups outside the chapel, or at roll-call, or before a lecture. It was

probably the first time they had ever been alone together.

"Right you are!" said Roland. "Mr Ruffer, bring me a large strawberry

ice and a cup of coffee."

But the ice did not last long, and they were soon strolling up the High

Street, with time heavy on their hands. Conversation flagged; they had

very little in common.

"I know," said Howard. "Let's go down to the castle grounds; they'll

probably have a band, and we can watch the dancing."

Half-way between the station and the school, opposite the Eversham

Hotel, where parents stopped for "commem" and confirmation, was a public

garden with a band-stand and well-kept lawns, and here on warm summer

evenings dances would promote and encourage the rustic courtships of

the youthful townsfolk. During the term these grounds were strictly out

of bounds to the school; but on the first night rules did not exist,

and besides, no one was likely to recognise them in the bowler hats and

coloured ties that would have to be put away that night in favour of

black poplin and broad white straw.

It was a warm night, and they leaned against the railing watching the

girls in their light print dresses waltz in the clumsy arms of their

selected.

"Looks awfully jolly," said Howard. "They don't have a bad time, those

fellows. There are one or two rippingly pretty girls."

"And look at the fellows they're dancing with. I can't think how they

can stand it. Now look there, at that couple by the stand. She's a

really pretty girl, while her man is pimply, with a scraggy moustache

and sweating forehead, and yet look how she's leaning over his shoulder;

think of her being kissed by that."

"I suppose there's something about him."

"I suppose so."

There was a pause: Roland wished that difference of training and

position did not hold them from the revel.

"By Jove!" said Roland, "it would be awful fun to join them."

"Well, I dare you to."

"Dare say you do. I'm not having any. I don't run risks in a place where

I'm known."

As a matter of fact, Roland did not run risks anywhere, but he wanted

Howard to think him something of a Don Juan. One is always ashamed of

innocence, and Howard was one of those fellows who naturally bring

out the worst side of their companions. His boisterous, assertive

confidence was practically a challenge, and Roland did not enjoy the

rôle of listener and disciple, especially as Howard was, by the school

standards, socially his inferior.

At that moment two girls strolled past, turned, and giggled over their

shoulders.

"Do you see that?" said Roland.

"What about it?"

"Well, I mean...."

The girls were coming back, and suddenly, to Roland's surprise,

embarrassment and annoyance, Howard walked forward and raised his hat.

"Lonely?" he said.

"Same as you."

"Like a walk, then?"

"All right, if your friend's not too shy."

And before Roland could make any protest he was walking, tongue-tied and

helpless, on the arm of a full-blown shop-girl.

"Well, you're a cheerful sort of chap, aren't you?" she said at last.

"Sorry, but you see I wasn't expecting you!"

"Oh, she didn't turn up, I suppose?"

"I didn't mean that."

"Oh, get along, I know you; you're all the same. Why, I was talking to a

boy last week...."

To save her the indignity of a confession, Roland suggested that they

should dance.

"All right, only don't hold me too tight--sister's looking."

There was no need to talk while they were dancing, and he was glad to be

able to collect his thoughts. It was an awkward business. She wasn't on

the whole a bad-looking girl; she was certainly too plump, but she had

a nice smile and pretty hair; and he felt no end of a dog. But it was

impossible to become romantic, for she giggled every time he tried to

hold her a little closer, and once when his cheek brushed accidentally

against hers she gave him a great push, and shouted, "Now then,

naughty!" to the intense amusement of another couple. Still, he enjoyed

dancing with her. It would be something to tell the fellows afterwards.

They would be sitting in the big study. Gradually the talk would drift

round to girls. He would sit in silence while the others would relate

invented escapades, prefaced by, "My brother told me," or, "I saw in

a French novel." He would wait for the lull, then himself would let

fall--oh! so gently--into the conversation, "a girl that I danced with

in the castle grounds...."

The final crash of the band recalled him to the requirements of

the moment, and the need for conversation. They sat on a seat and

discussed the weather, the suitability of grass as a dancing floor,

the superiority of a band over a piano. He introduced subject after

subject, bringing them up one after another, like the successive waves

of infantry in an attack. It was not a success. The first bars of a

waltz were a great relief.

He jumped up and offered her his arm.

"From the school, aren't you?" she said.

"How did you guess?" he asked. She answered him with a giggle.

It was a blow, admittedly a blow. He had not imagined himself a shining

success, but he had not thought that he was giving himself away quite

as badly as that. They got on a great deal better though after it. They

knew where they were, and he found her a very jolly girl, a simple

creature, whose one idea was to be admired and to enjoy herself, an

ambition not so very different from Roland's. It was her sense of

humour that beat him: she giggled most of the time; why he could not

understand. It was annoying, because everyone stared at them, and

Roland hated to be conspicuous. He was prepared to enjoy the illusion

but not the reality in public. He was not therefore very sorry when

the Abbey clock warned him that in a few minutes the four-eighteen

would have arrived and that the best place for him was the School house

dining-room.

On the way back he met Howard.

"I say, you rather let me in for it, you know," he said.

"Oh, rot, my dear chap; but even if I did, I'll bet you enjoyed yourself

all right."

"Perhaps I did. But that makes no difference. After all, you didn't know

I was going to. I'd never seen the girl before."

"But one never has on these occasions, has one? One's got to trust to

luck: you know that as well as I do."

"Of course, of course, but still...."

They argued it out till they reached the cloisters leading to the School

house studies, exchanged there a cheery good-night and went their way.

Five minutes later the four-eighteen was in; the study passages were

filled with shouts; Roland was running up and down stairs, greeting his

old friends. The incident was closed, and in the normal course of things

it would never have been reopened.

That it was reopened was due entirely, if indirectly, to Roland's

laziness on a wet Sunday afternoon, half way through October. It was a

really wet afternoon, the sort of afternoon when there is nothing to

be done but to pack one's study full of really good chaps and get up a

decent fug. Any small boy can be persuaded, with the aid of a shilling,

to brew some tea, and there are few things better than to sit in the

window-seat and watch the gravel courts turn to an enormous lake. Roland

was peculiarly aware of the charm of an afternoon so spent as he walked

across to his study after lunch, disquieted by the knowledge that his

football boots wanted restudding and that the night before he had vowed

solemnly that he would take them down to the professional before tea. It

would be fatal to leave them any longer, and he knew it. The ground on

Saturday had been too wet for football, and the whole house had gone for

a run, during which Roland had worn down one of his studs on the hard

roads, and driven a nail that uncomfortable hundredth of an inch through

the sole of his boot. If he wore those boots again before they had been

mended that hundredth of an inch would become a tenth of an inch, and

make no small part of a crater in his foot. It was obviously up to him

to put on a mackintosh and go down to the field at once. There was no

room for argument, and Roland knew it, but....

It was very pleasant and warm inside the study and damnably unpleasant

anywhere else. If only he were a prefect, and had a fag, how simple

his life would become. His shoes would be cleaned for him, his shaving

water would be boiled in the morning, his books would be carried down to

his classroom, and on this rain-drenched afternoon he would only have

to put his head outside the study door and yell "Fag!" and it would

be settled. But he was not a prefect, and he had no fag. It was no use

growling about it. He would have to go, of course he would have to go,

then added as a corollary--yes, certainly, at three o'clock. By that

time the weather might have cleared up.

But it had not cleared up by three o'clock, and Roland had become

hopelessly intrigued by a novel by Wilkie Collins, called _The

Moonstone_. He had just reached the place where Sergeant Cuff looks up

at Rachel's window and whistles _The Last Rose of Summer_. He could not

desert Sergeant Cuff at such a point for a pair of football boots, and

at three o'clock, with the whole afternoon before him. At half-past

there would be tons of time. But by half-past three it was raining in

the true Fernhurst manner, fierce, driving rain that whipped across the

courts, heavy gusts of wind that shrieked down the cloisters. Impossible

weather, absolutely impossible weather. No one but a fool would go out

in it. He would wait till four, it was certain to have stopped a bit by

then.

And by four o'clock it certainly was raining a good deal less, but by

four o'clock some eight persons had assembled in the study and a most

exciting discussion was in progress. Someone from Morgan's had started a

rumour to the effect that Fitzgerald, the vice-captain of the XV., was

going to be dropped out of the side for the Tonwich match and his place

given to Feversham, a reserve centre from James's. It was a startling

piece of news, that had to be discussed from every point of view.

First of all, would the side be improved? A doubtful matter. Fitzgerald

had certainly been out of form this season, and he had played miserably

in the last two matches, but he had experience; he would not be likely

to lose his head in a big game, and Feversham, well, it would be his

first school match. Altogether a doubtful issue, and, granted even that

Feversham was better than Fitzgerald, would it be worth while in the

long run to leave out the vice-captain and head of Buxton's? Would it be

doing a good service to Fernhurst football? Buxton's was the athletic

house; it had six school colours. The prestige of Fernhurst depended a

good deal on the prestige of Buxton's. Surely the prestige of Buxton's

was more important than a problematic improvement in the three-quarter

line.

They argued it out for a quarter of an hour and then, just when the last

point had been brought forward, and Roland had begun to feel that he was

left with no possible excuse for not going down to the field, the tea

arrived; and after that what chance did he stand? By the time tea was

over it was nearly five o'clock. Choir practice would have started in a

quarter of an hour: if he wanted to, he could not have gone down then. A

bad business. But it had been a pleasant afternoon; it was raining like

blazes still; very likely the ground would be again too wet for play

to-morrow, and he would cut the walk and get his boots mended. No doubt

things would pan out all right.

Things, however, did not on this occasion adapt themselves to Roland's

wishes. The rain stopped shortly after eight o'clock; a violent wind

shrieked all night along the cloisters; next morning the violent

wind was accompanied by bright sunshine; by half-past two the ground

was almost dry. Roland played in his unstudded boots, and, as he had

expected, the projecting hundredth of an inch sank deeply into his toe.

Three days later he was sent up to the sanatorium with a poisoned foot.

And in the sanatorium he found himself in the same ward and alone

with Howard, who was recovering from an attack of "flu" that had been

incorrectly diagnosed as measles.

It was the first time they had met since the first evening of the term.

CHAPTER II

THE OUTCOME

When two people are left alone together all day, with no amusement

except their own conversation, they naturally become intimate, and as

the episode of the dance was the only bond of interest between Howard

and Roland they turned to it at once. As soon as the matron had gone out

of the room Howard asked if he had been forgiven.

"Oh, yes, a long time ago; it was a jolly rag."

"Seen anything of your girl since then?"

"Heavens! no. Have you?"

"I should jolly well think so; one doesn't let a thing like that slip

through one's fingers in a hurry. I go out with her every Sunday, and as

likely as not once or twice during the week."

Roland was struck with surprise and admiration.

"But how on earth do you manage it?"

"Oh, it's quite easy: in our house anyone can get out who wants to. The

old man never spots anything. I just heave on a cap and mackintosh, meet

her behind the Abbey and we go for a stroll along the Slopes."

Roland could not ask too many questions and Howard was only too ready

to answer them. He had seldom enjoyed such a splendid audience. He was

not thought much of in the school, and to tell the truth he was not much

of a fellow. He had absorbed the worst characteristics of a bad house.

He would probably after he had left spend his evenings hanging about

private bars and the stage doors of second-class music halls. But he was

an interesting companion in the sanatorium, and he and Roland discussed

endlessly the eternally fascinating subject of girls.

"The one thing that you must never do with a girl is to be shy," Howard

said. "That's the one fatal thing that she'll never forgive. You can do

anything you like with any girl if only you go the right way about it.

She doesn't care whether you are good-looking or rich or clever, but if

she feels that you know more than she does, that she can trust herself

in your hands.... It's all personality. If a girl tries to push you away

when you kiss her, don't worry her, kiss her again; she only wants to be

persuaded; she'd despise you if you stopped; girls are weak themselves,

so they hate weakness. You can take it from me, Whately, that girls are

an easy game when you know the way to treat them. It would surprise you

if you could only know what they were thinking. You'll see them sitting

at your father's table, so demure, with their 'Yes, Mr Howard,' and

their 'No, Mr Howard.' You'd think they'd stepped out of the pages of a

fairy book, and yet get those same girls alone, and in the right mood,

my word...."

Inflammatory, suggestive stuff: the pimp in embryo.

And Roland was one of those on whom such persons thrive. He had always

kept straight at school; he was not clever nor imaginative, but he was

ambitious: and he had realised early that if he wanted to become a

power in the school he must needs be a success at games. He had kept

clear of anything that had seemed likely to impair his prowess on the

field. But it was different for him here in the sanatorium, with no

exercise and occupation. In a very little while he had become thoroughly

roused. Howard had enjoyed a certain number of doubtful experiences;

had read several of the books that appear in the advertisements of

obscure French papers as "rare and curious." He had in addition a good

imagination. Within two days Roland's one idea was to pick up at the

first opportunity the threads of the romance he had so callously flung

aside.

"There'll be no difficulty about that, my dear fellow," said Howard. "I

can easily get Betty to arrange it. We meet every Sunday, and we have

to walk right out beyond Cold Harbour. She says she feels a bit lonely

going out all that way by herself. Now suppose she went out with your

girl and you went out with me--that'ld be pretty simple, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, that would be splendid. Do you think you could fix it up?"

"As easy as laughing."

"But I shall feel an awful fool," Roland insisted. "I shan't know what

to say or anything."

"Don't you worry about that, my dear fellow; you just look as if you did

and keep your eyes open, and you'll soon learn; these girls know a lot

more than you would think."

So it was arranged. Roland found by the time his foot was right again

that he had let himself in for a pretty exacting programme. It had all

seemed jolly enough up at the sanatorium, but when he was back in the

house, and life re-established its old values, he began to regret it

very heartily. He didn't mind going out with the girl--that would be

quite exciting: besides it was an experience to which everyone had to

come some time or other--but he did not look forward to a long walk with

Howard every Sunday afternoon for the rest of the term.

"Whately, old son," he said to his reflection in the glass as he shaved

himself on the next Sunday morning, "you've made a pretty sanguinary

fool of yourself, but you can't clear out now. You've got to see it

through."

It was very awkward though when Anderson ran up to him in the cloisters

with "Hullo, Whately, going out for a stroll; well, just wait

half-a-sec. while I fetch my hat." Roland had an infernal job getting

rid of him.

"But, my dear man," Anderson had protested, "where on earth are you

going? I've always thought you the piest man in the house. But if it's a

smoke I'll watch you and if it's a drink I'll help you."

"Oh no, it's not that. I'm going out with a man in Morgan's."

Anderson's mouth emitted a long whistle of surprise.

"So our Whately has deserted his old friends? Ah, well, when one gets

into the XV., I know."

Roland could see that Anderson was offended.

But it was even worse when he came back to find his study full of seven

indignant sportsmen wanting to know why on earth he had taken to going

out for walks with "a dirty tick in Morgan's, who was no use at anything

and didn't even wash."

"He's quite a decent chap," said Roland weakly. "I met him in the san."

"I dare say you did," said Anderson; "we're not blaming you for that.

You couldn't help it. But those sorts of things, one does try to live

down."

For days he was ragged about it, so much so that he hadn't the face to

say he had been going out with a girl. Such a statement should be a

proud acknowledgment, not a confession. If ever he said he couldn't go

anywhere, or do something, the invariable retort was, "I suppose you're

going out for a walk with Howard."

The School house was exclusive; it was insular; it was prepared to allow

the possibility of its members having friends in the outhouses; there

were good men in the outhouses, even in Morgan's. But one had to be

particular, and when it came to Whately, a man of whom the house was

proud, deserting his friends for a greasy swine in Morgan's who didn't

wash, well, the least one could do was to make the man realise that he

had gone a little far.

It was a bad business, altogether a bad business, and Roland very much

doubted whether the hour and a half he spent with Dolly was an adequate

recompense. She was a nice girl, quite a nice girl, and they found

themselves on kissing terms quickly enough. There were no signs of their

getting any further, and, as a matter of fact, if there had been, Roland

would have been extremely alarmed. He objected to awkward situations

and intense emotions: he preferred to keep his life within the decent

borders of routine. He wanted adventure certainly, but adventure bounded

by the limits of the society in which he lived. He liked to feel that

his day was tabulated and arranged; he hated that lost feeling of being

unprepared; he liked to know exactly what he had to say to Dolly before

he could hold her hand and exactly what he had to say before she would

let him kiss her. It was a game that had to be rehearsed before one got

it right; no actor enjoys his part before he has learnt his words; when

he had learnt the rules it was great fun; kisses were pleasant things.

He wrote a letter to his friend, Ralph Richmond, acquainting him of this

fact.

MY DEAR RALPH,--Why haven't you written to me, you lazy swine?

I suppose you will say that you're awfully hard worked, getting

ready for Smalls. But I don't believe it. I know how much I do

myself.

It's been quite a decent term. I got my colours and shall be

captain of the house after the summer if the people I think are

going to leave do leave. Think of me as a ruler of men. I'm having

a pretty good slack in form and don't have to do any work, except

in French, where a fellow called Carus-Evans, an awful swine, has

his knife into me and puts me on whenever we get to a hard bit.

However, as I never do much else I'm able to swot the French all

right.

The great bit of news, though, is that I've met a girl in the

town who I go out for walks with. I'm not really keen on her, and I

think I prefer her friend, Betty (we go in couples). Betty's much

older and she's dark and she makes you blush when she looks at you.

Still, Dolly's very jolly, and we go out for walks every Sunday and

have great times. She lets me kiss her as much as I like. Now what

do you think of it? Write and tell me at once. Yours ever,

ROLAND.

Two days later Roland received the following reply:--

MY DEAR ROLAND,--So glad to hear from you again, and many

congratulations on your firsts. I had heard about them as a matter

of fact, and had been meaning to write to you, but I am very busy

just now. April told me about it; she seemed awfully pleased. I

must say she was looking jolly pretty; she thinks a lot of you.

Sort of hero. If I were you I should think a bit more about her and

a little less about your Bettys and Dollys.

I'm looking forward to the holidays. We must manage to have a

few good rags somehow. The Saundersons are giving a dance, so that

ought to be amusing. Ever yours,

RALPH.

Roland's comment on this letter was "Jealous little beast." He wished

he hadn't written to him. And why drag April in? He and April were

great friends; they always had been. Once they had imagined themselves

sweethearts. When they went out to parties they had always sat next each

other during tea and held hands under the table; in general post Roland

had often been driven into the centre because of a brilliant failure

to take the chair that was next to hers. They had kissed sometimes at

dances in the shadow of a passage, and once at a party, when they had

been pulling crackers, he had slipped on to the fourth finger of her

left hand a brass ring that had fallen from the crumpled paper. She

still kept that ring, although the days of courtship were over. Roland

had altered since he had gone to Fernhurst. But they were great friends,

and there was always an idea between the two families that the children

might eventually marry. Mr Whately was, indeed, fond of prefacing some

remote speculation about the future with, "By the time Roland and April

are married----"

There was no need, Roland felt, for Ralph to have dragged April into

the business at all. He was aggrieved, and the whole business seemed

again a waste and an encumbrance. Was it worth while? He got ragged in

the house, and he had to spend an hour in Howard's company before he

met Dolly at all. Howard was really rather terrible; so conceited, so

familiar; and now that he had found an audience he indulged it the whole

time. He was at his worst when he attempted sentiment. Once when they

were walking back he turned to Roland, in the middle of a soliloquy,

with a gesture of profound disdain and resignation.

"But what's all this after all?" he said. "It's nothing; it's pleasant;

it passes the time, and we have to have some distractions in this

place to keep us going. But it's not the real thing; there's all the

difference in the world between this and the real thing. A kiss can be

anything or nothing; it can raise one to--to any height, or it can be

like eating chocolates. I'm not a chap, you know, who really cares for

this sort of thing. I'm in love. I suppose you are too."

And Roland, who did not want to be outdone, confessed that there was

someone, "a girl he had known all his life."

"But you don't want a girl you've known all your life; love's not a

thing that we drift into; it must be sudden; it must be unexpected; it

must hurt."

Howard was a sore trial, and it was with the most unutterable relief

that Roland learned that he was leaving at Christmas to go to a

crammer's.

"We must keep up with one another, old fellow," Howard said on their

last Sunday. "You must come and lunch with me one day in town. Write and

tell me all about it. We've had some jolly times."

Roland caught a glimpse of him on the last day, resplendent in an O.F.

scarf, very loud and hearty, saying "good-bye" to people he had hardly

spoken to before. "You'll write to me, won't you, old fellow? Come and

lunch with me when you're up in town. The Regent Club. Good-bye." Since

his first year, when the prefect for whom he had fagged, and by whom

he had been beaten several times, had left, Roland had never been so

heartily thankful to see any member of the school in old boys' colours.

CHAPTER III

RALPH AND APRIL

Ralph Richmond was the son of an emotional woman and he had read too

many novels. He took himself seriously: without being religious,

he considered that it was the duty of every man to leave the world

better than he found it. Such a philosophy may be natural to a man

of thirty-six who sees small prospect of realising his own ambition,

and resorts to the consolation of a collective enthusiasm, but it is

abnormal in a boy of seventeen, an age which usually sees itself in

the stalls of a theatre waiting for the curtain to rise and reveal

a stage set with limitless opportunities for self-development and

self-indulgence.

But Ralph had been brought up in an atmosphere of ideals; at the age of

seven he gave a performance of _Hamlet_ in the nursery, and in the same

year he visited a lenten performance of _Everyman_. At his preparatory

school he came under the influence of an empire builder, who used to

appeal to the emotions of his form. "The future of the country is in

your hands," he would say. "One day you will be at the helm. You must

prepare yourselves for that time. You must never forget." And Ralph did

not. He thought of himself as the arbiter of destinies. He felt that

till that day his life must be a vigil. Like the knights of Arthurian

romance, he would watch beside his armour in the chapel. In the process

he became a prig, and on his last day at Rycroft Lodge he became a

prude. His headmaster gave all the boys who were leaving a long and

serious address on the various temptations of the flesh to which they

would be subjected at their Public Schools. Ralph had no clear idea

of what these temptations might be. Their results, however, seemed

sufficient reason for abstention. If he yielded to them, he gathered

that he would lose in a short time his powers of thought, his strength,

his moral stamina; a slow poison would devour him; in a few years he

would be mad and blind and probably, though of this he was not quite

certain, deaf as well. At any rate he would be in a condition when the

ability of detecting sound would be of slight value. These threats were

alarming: their effect, however, would not have been lasting in the case

of Ralph, who was no coward and also, being no fool, would have soon

observed that this process of disintegration was not universal in its

application. No; it was not the threat that did the damage: it was the

romantic appeal of the headmaster's peroration.

"After all," he said, after a dramatic pause, "how can any one of you

who has been a filthy beast at school dare to propose marriage to some

pure, clean woman?"

That told; that sentiment was within the range of his comprehension;

it was a beautiful idea, a chivalrous idea, worthy, he inappropriately

imagined, of Sir Lancelot. He could understand that a knight should

come to his lady with glittering armour and an unstained sword. At the

time he did not fully appreciate the application of this image: he

soon learnt, however, that a night spent on one's knees on the stone

floor of a draughty chapel is a cold and lonely prelude to enchantment:

a discovery that did not make him the more charitable to those who

preferred clean linen and soft down.

It was only to be supposed, therefore, that he would receive Roland's

confidences with disgust. He had always felt a little jealous of April's

obvious preference for his friend, but he had regarded it as the fortune

of war and had taken what pleasure he might in the part of confidant.

To this vicarious excitant their intimacy indeed owed its strength. His

indignation, therefore, when he learnt of Roland's rustic courtship was

only exceeded by his positive fury when, on the first evening of the

holidays, he went round to see the Curtises and found there Roland and

his father. It was the height of hypocrisy. He had supposed that Roland

would at least have the decency to keep away from her. It had been bad

enough to give up a decent girl for a shop assistant, but to come back

and carry on as though nothing had happened.... It was monstrous, cruel,

unthinkable. And there was April, so clean and calm, with her thick

brown hair gathered up in a loop across her forehead; her eyes, deep

and gentle, with subdued colours, brown and a shade of green, and that

delicate smile of simple trust and innocence, smiling at him, ignorant

of how she had been deceived.

It must be set down, however, to Roland's credit that he had felt

a few qualms about going round at once to see the Curtises. Less

than twenty-four hours had passed since he had held Dolly's hand

and protested to her an undying loyalty. He did not love her; the

words meant nothing, and they both knew it; they were merely part of

the convention of the game. Nor for that matter was he in love with

April--at least he did not think he was. He owed nothing to either of

them. But conscience told him that, in view of the understanding that

was supposed to exist between them, it would be more proper to wait a

day or two. After all, one did not go to a theatre the day after one's

father's funeral, however eagerly one's imagination had anticipated the

event.

Things had, however, turned out otherwise. At a quarter to six Mr

Whately returned from town. He was the manager of a bank, at a salary of

seven hundred and fifty pounds a year, an income that allowed the family

to visit the theatre, upper circle seats, at least once every holidays

and provided Roland with as much pocket-money as he needed. Mr Whately

walked into the drawing-room, greeted his son with the conventional joke

about a holiday task, handed his wife a copy of _The Globe_, sat down in

front of the fire and began to take off his boots.

"Nothing much in the papers to-day, my dear. Not much happening anywhere

as a matter of fact. I had lunch to-day with Robinson and he called it

the lull before the storm. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he wasn't

right. You can't trust these Radicals."

He was a scrubby little man: for thirty years he had worked in the same

house: there had been no friction and no excitement in his life: he had

by now lost any independence of thought and action.

"I've just found a splendid place, my dear, where you can get a really

first-class lunch for one-and-sixpence."

"Have you, dear?"

"Yes; in Soho, just behind the Palace. I went there to-day with

Robinson. We had four courses, and cheese to finish up with. Something

like."

"And was it well cooked, dear?"

"Rather; the plaice was beautifully fried. Just beginning to brown."

His face flushed with a genuine animation. Change of food was the only

adventure that life brought to him. He rose slowly.

"Well, I must go up and change, I suppose. I've one or two other things

to tell you, dear, later on."

He did not ask his wife what she had been doing during the day; it was

indeed doubtful whether he appreciated the existence of any life at 105

Hammerton Villas, Hammerton, during the hours when he was away from

them. Himself was the central point.

Five minutes later he came down stairs in a light suit.

"Well, who's coming out with me for a constitutional?"

Roland got up, walked into the hall, picked up his hat and stick.

"Right you are, father; I'm ready."

It was the same thing every day. At eight-thirty-five Mr Whately caught

a bus at the corner of the High Street. He had never been known to miss

it. On the rare occasions when he was a few seconds late the driver

would wait till he saw the panting little figure come running round

the corner, trying to look dignified in spite of the top hat that

bobbed from one side of his head to the other. From nine o'clock till a

quarter-past five Mr Whately worked at a desk, with an hour's interval

for lunch. Every evening he went for an hour's walk; for half-an-hour

before dinner he read the evening paper. After dinner he would play a

game of patience and smoke his pipe. Occasionally a friend would drop in

for a chat; very occasionally he would go out himself. At ten o'clock

sharp he went to bed. Every Saturday afternoon he attended a public

performance of either cricket or football according to the season.

Roland often wondered how he could stand it. What had he to look forward

to? What did he think about when he sat over the fire puffing at his

pipe. And his mother. How monotonous her life appeared to him. Yet

she seemed always happy enough: she never grumbled. Roland could not

understand it. Whatever happened, he would take jolly good care that he

never ran into a groove like that. They had loved each other well enough

once, he supposed, but now--oh, well, love was the privilege of youth.

Father and son walked in silence. They were fond of each other;

they liked being together; Mr Whately was very proud of his son's

achievements; but their affection was never expressed in words. After a

while they began to talk of indifferent things, guessing at each other's

thoughts: a relationship of intuitions. They passed along the High

Street and, turning behind the shops, walked down a long street of small

red-brick villas with stucco fronts.

"Don't you think we ought to go in and see the Curtises?" Mr Whately

asked.

"I don't know. I hadn't meant to. I thought...."

"I think you ought to, you know, your first day; they'd be rather

offended if you didn't. April asked me when you were coming back."

And so Roland was bound to abandon his virtuous resolution.

It was not a particularly jolly evening before Ralph arrived. Afterwards

it was a good deal worse.

In the old days, when father and son had paid an evening visit, Roland

had run straight up to the nursery and enjoyed himself, but now he had

to sit in the drawing-room, which was a very different matter. He did

not like Mrs Curtis: he never had liked her, but she had not troubled

him in the days when she had been a mere voice below the banisters. Now

he had to sit in the small drawing-room, with its shut windows, and hear

her voice cleave through the clammy atmosphere in languid, pathetic

cadences; a sentimental voice, and under the sentiment a hard, cold

cruelty. Her person was out of keeping with her voice; it should have

been plump and comfortable-looking; instead it was tall, thin, angular,

all over points, like a hat-rack in a restaurant: a terrible bedfellow.

And she talked, heavens! how she talked. It was usually about her

children.

"Dear Arthur, he's getting on so well at school. Do you know what his

headmaster said about him in his report?"

"Oh, but, mother, please," Arthur would protest.

"No, dear, be quiet: I know Mr Whately would like to hear. The

headmaster said, Mr Whately...." Then it was her daughter's turn.

"And April too, Mr Whately, she's getting on so well with her drawing

lessons. Mr Hamilton was only saying to me yesterday...."

It was not surprising that Roland was less keen now on going round

there. It was little fun for him after all to sit and listen while she

talked, to see his father so utterly complacent, with his "Yes, Mrs

Curtis," and his "Really, Mrs Curtis," and to look at poor April huddled

in the window-seat, so bored, so ashamed, her eyes meeting his with a

look that said: "Don't worry about her, don't take any notice of what

she says. I'm not like that." Once or twice he tried to talk to her,

but it was no use: her mother would interrupt, would bring them back

into the circle of her own egotism. In her own drawing-room she would

tolerate nothing independent of herself.

"Yes, Roland; what was it you were saying? The Saundersons' dance? Of

course April will be going. They're very old friends of ours, the

Saundersons. Mr Saunderson thinks such a lot of Arthur too. You know, Mr

Whately, I met him in the High Street the other afternoon and he said to

me, 'How's that clever son of yours getting on, Mrs Curtis?'"

"Really, Mrs Curtis."

"Yes, really, Mr Whately."

It was at this point that Ralph arrived.

His look of surprised displeasure was obvious to everyone. But knowing

Ralph, they mistook it for awkwardness. He did not like company, and his

shyness was apparent as he stood in the doorway in an ill-fitting suit,

with trousers that bagged at the knees, and with the front part of his

hair smarmed across his forehead with one hurried sweep of a damp brush,

at right angles to the rest of his hair, that fell perpendicularly from

the crown of his head.

"Come along, Ralph," said April, and made room for him in the

window-seat. She treated him with an amused condescension. He was so

clumsy; a dear fellow, so easy to rag. "And how did your exam. go?" she

asked.

"All right."

"No; but really, tell me about it. What were the maths like?"

"Not so bad."

"And the geography? You were so nervous about that."

"I didn't do badly."

"And the Latin and the Greek? I want to know all about it."

"You don't, really?"

"Yes, but I do."

"No, you don't," he said impatiently. "You'd much rather hear about

Roland and all the things he does at Fernhurst."

There was a moment of difficult silence, then April said quite quietly:

"You are quite right, Ralph; as a matter of fact I should"; and she

turned towards Roland, but before she could say anything, Mrs Curtis

once more assumed her monopoly of the conversation.

"Yes, Roland, you've told us nothing about that, and how you got your

firsts. We were so proud of you too. And you never wrote to tell us. If

it hadn't been for your father we should never have known." And for the

next half-hour her voice flowed on placidly, while Ralph sat in a frenzy

of self-pity and self-contempt, and Roland longed for an opportunity to

kick him, and April looked out between the half-drawn curtains towards

the narrow line of sky that lay darkly over the long stretch of roofs

and chimney-pots, happy that Roland's holidays had begun, regretting

wistfully that childhood was finished for them, that they could no

longer play their own games in the nursery, that they had become part of

the ambitions of their parents.

When at last they rose to go, Ralph lingered for a moment in the

doorway; he could not go home till April had forgiven him.

She stood on the top of the step, looking down the street to Roland, her

heart still beating a little quickly, still disturbed by that pressure

of the hand and that sudden uncomfortable meeting of the eyes when he

had said "Good-bye." She did not notice Ralph till he began to speak to

her.

"I am awfully sorry I was so rude to you, April. I'm rather tired. I

didn't mean to offend you. I wouldn't have done it for worlds."

She turned to him with a quiet smile.

"Oh, don't worry about that," she said, "that's nothing."

And he could see that to her it was indeed nothing, that she had not

thought twice about it. That nothing he said or did was of the least

concern to her. He would much rather that she had been angry.

* * * * *

Next day Ralph came round to the Whatelys' soon after breakfast.

"Well, feeling more peaceful to-day, old friend?" Ralph looked at Roland

in impotent annoyance. As he knew of old, Roland was an impossible

person to have a row with. He simply would not fight. He either agreed

to everything you said or else brushed away your arguments with a

good-natured "All right, old man, all right!" On this occasion, however,

he felt that he must make a stand.

"You're the limit," he said; "the absolute limit."

"I don't know about that, but I think you were last night."

"Oh, don't joke about it. You know what I mean. I think it's pretty

rotten for a fellow like you to go about with a shop-assistant, but

that's not really the thing. What's simply beastly is your coming back

to April as though nothing had happened. What would she say if she

knew?"

Roland refused to acknowledge omniscience. "I don't know," he said.

"She wouldn't be pleased, would she?" Ralph persisted.

"I don't suppose so."

"No; well then, there you are; you oughtn't to do anything you think she

mightn't like."

Roland looked at him with a sad patience, as a preparatory schoolmaster

at a refractory infant.

"But, my dear fellow, we're not married, and we're not engaged. Surely

we can do more or less what we like."

"But would you be pleased if you learned that she'd been carrying on

with someone else?"

Roland admitted that he would not.

"Then why should you think you owe nothing to her?"

"It's different, my dear Ralph; it's quite different."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is. Boys can do things that girls can't. A flirtation means

very little to a boy; it means a good deal to a girl--at least it ought

to. If it doesn't, it means that she's had too much of it."

"But I don't see----" began Ralph.

"Come on, come on; don't let's go all over that again. We shall never

agree. Let me go my way and you can go yours. We are too old friends to

quarrel about a thing like this."

Most boys would have been annoyed by Ralph's attempt at interference,

but it took a great deal to ruffle Roland's lazy, equable good nature.

He did not believe in rows. He liked to keep things running smoothly.

He could never understand the people who were always wanting to stir up

trouble. He did not really care enough either way. His tolerance might

have been called indifference, but it possessed, at any rate, a genuine

charm. The other fellow always felt what a thundering good chap Roland

was--so good-tempered, such a gentleman, never harbouring a grievance.

People knew where they were with him; when he said a thing was over it

was over.

"All right," said Ralph grudgingly. "I don't know that it's quite the

game----"

"Don't worry. We're a long way from anything serious. A good deal's got

to happen before we're come to the age when we can't do what we like."

And they talked of other things.

CHAPTER IV

A KISS

April sat for a long while before the looking-glass wondering whether

to tie a blue or a white ribbon in her hair. She tried one and then the

other and paused irresolute. It was the evening of the Saundersons'

dance, to which for weeks she had been looking forward, and she was

desperately anxious to look pretty. It would be a big affair: ices

and claret-cup and a band, and Roland would be there. They had seen a

lot of each other during the holidays--nearly every day. Often they

had felt awkward in each other's company; there had been embarrassing

silences, when their eyes would meet suddenly and quickly turn away;

and then there would come an unexpected interlude of calm, harmonious

friendship, when they would talk openly and naturally to each other and

would sit afterwards for a long while silent, softened and tranquillised

by the presence of some unknown influence--moments of rare gentleness

and sympathy. April could not help feeling that they were on the edge

of something definite, some incident of avowal. She did not know what,

but she felt that something was about to happen. She was flustered and

expectant and eager to look pretty for Roland on this great evening.

She had chosen a very simple dress, a white muslin frock, that left

bare her arms and throat, and was trimmed with pale blue ribbon at the

neck and elbow; her stockings, too, were white, but her shoes and her

sash a vivid, unexpected scarlet. She turned round slowly before the

glass and smiled happily at her clear, fresh girlhood, tossing back

her head, so that her hair was shaken out over her shoulders. Surely

he would think her beautiful to-night. With eager fingers she tied the

blue ribbon in her hair, turned again slowly before the glass, smiled,

shook out her hair, and laughed happily. Yes, she would wear the blue--a

subdued, quiet colour, that faded naturally into the warm brown. She ran

downstairs for her family's approval, stood before her mother and turned

a slow circle.

"Well, mother?"

Mrs Curtis examined her critically.

"Of course, dear, I'm quite certain that you'll be the prettiest girl

there whatever you wear."

"What do you mean, mother?"

"Well, April dear, of course I know you think you know best, but that

white frock--it is so very simple."

"But simple things suit me, mother."

"I know they do, dear; you look sweet in anything; but at a big

dance like this, where there'll be so many smart people, they might

think--well, I don't know, dear, but it is very quiet, isn't it?"

The moment before April had been happy and excited, and now she was

crushed and humiliated. She sat down on the edge of a chair, gazing with

pathetic pity at her brilliant shoes.

"You've spoilt it all," she said.

"No, dear. I'm sure you'll be thankful to me when you get there. Now,

why don't you run upstairs and put on that nice mauve frock of yours?"

April shook her shoulders.

"I don't like mauve."

"Well then, dear, there's the green and yellow; you always look nice in

that."

It was a bright affair that her mother had seen at a sale in Brixton

and bought at once because it was so cheap. It had never really suited

April, whose delicate features needed a simple setting; but her mother

did not like to feel that she had made a mistake, and having persuaded

herself that the green and yellow was the right colour, and matched

her daughter's eyes, had insisted on April's wearing it as often as

possible.

"Yes, my dear, the green and yellow. I'm sure I'm right. Now hurry up;

the cab will be here in ten minutes."

April walked upstairs slowly. She hated that green and yellow; she

always had hated it. She took it down from the wardrobe and, holding

the ends of the sleeves, stretched out her arms on either side so that

the green and yellow dress covered her completely, and then she stood

looking at it in the glass.

How blatant, how decorative it was, with its bows and ribbons and

slashed sleeves. There were some girls whom it would suit--big girls

with high complexions and full figures. But it wasn't her dress, it

spoilt her. She let it slip from her fingers; it fell rustling to the

floor, and once again the glass reflected her in a plain white frock,

and once again she tossed back her head, and once again the slow

smile of satisfaction played across her lips. And as she stood there

with outstretched arms, for one inspired moment of revelation, during

which the beating of her heart was stilled, she saw how beautiful she

would one day be to the man for whom with such a gesture she would be

delivered to his love. A deep flush coloured her neck and face, a flush

of triumphant pride, of wakening womanhood. Then with a quick, impatient

movement of her scarlet shoes she kicked the yellow dress away from her.

Why should she wear it? She dressed to please herself and not her

mother. She knew best what suited her. What would happen if she

disobeyed her? Would anyone ever know? She could manage to slip out when

no one was looking. Annie would be sent to fetch her, but they would

come back after everyone had gone to bed.

She sat on the edge of her bed and toyed with the thought of rebellion.

It would be horribly exciting. It would be the naughtiest thing she had

done in her life. She had never yet disobeyed deliberately anyone who

had authority over her. She had lost her temper in the nursery; she had

been insolent to her nurses; she had pretended not to hear when she had

been called; but never this: never had she sat down and decided in cold

blood to disregard authority.

There was a knock at the door.

"Yes. Who's that?"

"It's only me--mother. Can I help you, dear?"

"No thank you, mother, I'm all right."

"Quite sure?"

"Quite."

April heard her mother slowly descend the stairs, then heaved a sigh of

half-proud, half-guilty relief. She was glad she had managed to get out

of it without actually telling a lie. She sat still and waited, till at

last she heard the crunch of a cab drawing up outside the house. She

wrapped herself tightly in her coat, tiptoed to the door, opened it and

listened. She could hear her mother's voice in the passage. Quietly she

stole out on to the landing, quietly ran downstairs and across the hall,

fumbled for the door handle, found it, turned it, and pulled it quickly

behind her. It was done; she was free. As she ran down the steps she

heard a window open behind her and her mother's voice:

"Who's that? What is it? Oh, you, April. You might have come to see me

before you went. A happy evening to you."

April could not trust herself to speak; she ran down the steps, jumped

into the cab and sank back into the corner of the cushioned seat. Her

breath came quickly and unevenly, her breasts heaved and fell. She could

have almost cried with excitement.

It had been worth it, though. She knew that beyond doubt a quarter of an

hour later, when she walked into the ballroom and saw the look of sudden

admiration that came into Roland's eyes when he saw her for the first

time across the room. He came straight over to her.

"How many dances may I have?" he asked.

"Well, there's No. 11."

"No. 11? Let me have a look at your card."

"No, of course you mustn't."

"Yes, of course. Why, I don't believe you have got one!"

"Yes, I have," she said, and held it up to him. In a second it was in

his hand, as indeed she had intended that it should be.

"Well, now," said Roland, "as far as I can see you've got only Nos. 6,

7, 14 and 15 engaged; that leaves fourteen for me."

"Well, you can have the four," she laughed.

In the end she gave him six. "And if I've any over you shall have them,"

she promised.

"Well you know there won't be," and their eyes met in a moment of quiet

intimacy.

As soon as he had gone other partners crowded round her. In a very short

while her programme was filled right up, the five extras as well. She

had left No. 17 vacant; it was the last waltz. She felt that she might

like Roland to have it, but was not sure. She didn't quite know why, but

she felt she would leave it open.

It was a splendid dance. As the evening passed, her face flushed and

her eyes brightened, and it was delightful to slip from the heat of the

ballroom on to the wide balcony and feel the cool of the air on her bare

arms. She danced once with Ralph, and as they sat out afterwards she

could almost feel the touch of his eyes on her. Poor Ralph; he was so

clumsy. How absurd it was of him to be in love with her. As if she could

ever care for him. She felt no pity. She accepted his admiration as a

queen accepts a subject's loyalty; it was the right due to her beauty,

to the eager flow of life that sustained her on this night of triumph.

And every dance with Roland seemed to bring her nearer to the wonderful

moment to which she had so long looked forward. When she was dancing

with Ralph, Roland's eyes would follow her all round the room, smiling

when they met hers. And when they danced together they seemed to share a

secret with one another, a secret still unrevealed.

Through the languid ecstasy of a waltz the words that he murmured into

her ear had no relation with their accepted sense. He was not repeating

a piece of trivial gossip, a pun, a story he had heard at school; he was

wooing her in their own way, in their own time. And afterwards as they

sat on the edge of the balcony, looking out over the roofs and lights

of London, she began to tell him about her dress and the trouble that

she had had with her mother. "She said I ought to wear a horrid thing

with yellow and green stripes that doesn't suit me in the least. And I

wouldn't. I stole out of the house when she wasn't looking."

"You look wonderful to-night," he said.

He leant forward and their hands touched; his little finger intertwined

itself round hers. She felt his warm breath upon her face.

"Do I?" she whispered. "It's all for you."

In another moment he would have taken her in his arms and kissed her,

and she would have responded naturally. They had reached that moment to

which the course of the courtship had tended, that point when a kiss is

involuntary, that point that can never come again. But just as his hands

stretched out to her the band struck up; he rested his hand on hers and

pressed it.

"We shall have to go," he whispered.

"Yes."

"But the next but one."

"No. 16."

But the magic of that one moment had passed; they had left behind

them the possibility of spontaneous action. They were no longer part

of the natural rhythm of their courtship. All through the next dance

he kept saying to himself: "I shall have to kiss her the next time. I

shall. I know I shall. I must pull myself together." He felt puzzled,

frightened and excited, so that when the time came he was both nervous

and self-conscious. The magic had gone, yet each felt that something

was expected of them. Roland tried to pull himself together; to remind

himself that if he didn't kiss her now she would never forgive him;

that there was nothing in it; that he had kissed Dolly a hundred times

and thought nothing of it. But it was not the same thing; that was

shallow and trivial; this was genuine; real emotion was at stake. He did

not know what to do. As they sat out after the dance he tried to make

a bet with himself, to say, "I'll count ten and then I'll do it." He

stretched out his hand to hers, and it lay in his limp and uninspired.

"April," he whispered, "April."

She turned her head from him. He leant forward, hesitated for a moment,

then kissed her awkwardly upon the neck. She did not move. He felt he

must do something. He put his arm round her, trying to turn her face to

his, but she pulled away from him. He tried to kiss her, and his chin

scratched the soft skin of her cheek, his nose struck hers, her mouth

half opened, and her teeth jarred against his lips. It was a failure, a

dismal failure.

She pushed him away angrily.

"Go away! go away!" she said. "What are you doing? What do you mean by

it? I hate you; go away!"

All the excitement of the evening turned into violent hatred; she was

half hysterical. She had been worked up to a point, and had been let

down. She was not angry with him because he had tried to kiss her, but

because he had chosen the wrong moment, because he had failed to move

her.

"But, April, I'm sorry, April."

"Oh, go away; leave me alone, leave me alone."

"But, April." He put his hand upon her arm, and she swung round upon him

fiercely.

"Didn't I tell you I wanted to be left alone. I don't know how you

dared. Do leave me."

She walked quickly past him into the ballroom, and seeing Ralph at

the far end of it went up and asked him, to that young gentleman's

exhilarated amazement, whether he was free for No. 17, and if he was

whether he would like to dance it with her. She wore a brave smile

through the rest of the evening and danced all her five extras.

But when she was home again, had climbed the silent stairs, and turning

up the light in her bedroom saw, lying on the floor, the discarded green

and yellow dress, she broke down, and flinging herself upon the bed

sobbed long and bitterly. She was not angry with Roland, nor her mother,

nor even with herself, but with life, with that cruel force that had

filled her with such eager boundless expectation, only in the end to

fling her down, to trample on her happiness, to mock her disenchantment.

Never as long as she lived would she forget the shame, the unspeakable

shame, and degradation of that evening.

CHAPTER V

A POTENTIAL DIPLOMAT

Roland returned to school with the uncomfortable feeling that he had

not made the most of his holidays. He had failed with April; he had not

been on the best of terms with Ralph; and he had found the last week or

so--after the Saundersons' dance--a little tedious. He was never sorry

to go back to school; on this occasion he was positively glad.

In many ways the Easter term was the best of the three; it was agreeably

short; there were the house matches, the steeplechases, the sports and

then, at the end of it, spring; those wonderful mornings at the end of

March when one woke to see the courts vivid with sunshine, the lindens

trembling on the verge of green; when one thought of the summer and

cricket and bathing and the long, cool evenings. And as Howard had now

left, there was nothing to molest his enjoyment of these good things.

He decided, after careful deliberation, to keep it up with Dolly. There

had been moments during the holidays when he had sworn to break with

her; it would be quite easy now that Howard had left. And often during

an afternoon in April's company the idea of embracing Dolly had been

repulsive to him. But he had been piqued by April's behaviour at the

dance, and his conduct was not ordered by a carefully-thought-out code

of morals. He responded to the atmosphere of the moment; his emotion,

while the moment that inspired it lasted, was sincere.

And so every Sunday afternoon he used to bicycle out towards Yeovil and

meet Dolly on the edge of a little wood. They would wheel their machines

inside and sit together in the shelter of the hedge. They did not talk

much; there was not much for them to discuss. But she would take off

her hat and lean her head against his shoulder and let him kiss her

as much as he wanted. She was not responsive, but then Roland hardly

expected it. His small experience of the one-sided romances of school

life had led him to believe that love was a thing of male desire and

gracious, womanly compliance. He never thought that anyone would want

to kiss him. He would look at his reflection in the glass and marvel at

the inelegance of his features--an ordinary face with ordinary eyes,

ordinary nose, ordinary mouth. Of his hair certainly he was proud; it

was a triumph. But he doubted whether Dolly appreciated the care with

which he had trained it to lie back from his forehead in one immaculate

wave. She had, indeed, asked him to give up brilliantine.

"It's so hard and smarmy," she complained; "I can't run my fingers

through it."

The one good point about him was certainly lost on Dolly. He wondered

whether April liked it. April and Dolly! It was hard to think of the

two together. What would April say if she were to hear about Dolly?

It was the theme Ralph was always driving at him like a nail, with

heavy, ponderous blows. An interesting point. What would April say?

He considered the question, not as a possible criticism of his own

conduct, but as the material for an intriguing, dramatic situation. It

would be hard to make her see the difference. "I'm a girl and she's a

girl and you want to kiss us both." That was how she would look at it,

probably--so illogical. One might as well say that water was the same

thing and had the same effect as champagne. Ridiculous! But it would be

hard to make April see it.

And there was a difference, a big difference; he felt it before a

fortnight of the new term had passed. In spite of the kisses he was

never moved by Dolly's presence as he was by April's. His blood was

calm--calmer, far calmer, than it had been last term. He never felt now

that excitement, that dryness of the throat that used to assail him in

morning chapel towards the end of the Litany. Something had passed, and

it was not solely April, though, no doubt, she had formed a standard

in his mind and had her share in this disenchantment. It was more than

that. In a subtle way, although he had hardly exchanged a dozen words

with her in his life, he missed Betty. He had enjoyed more than he had

realised at the time those moments of meeting and parting, when the four

of them had stood together, awkward, embarrassed, waiting for someone to

suggest a separation. It had always been Betty who had done it, with a

toss of her head: "Come on, Dolly, time to be getting on"; or else: "Now

then, Dolly, isn't it time you were taking your Roland away with you?"

And what a provocative, infinitely suggestive charm that slow smile of

hers had held for him. The thrill of it had borne him triumphantly over

the preliminaries of courtship. He missed it now, and often he found

himself talking of her to Dolly.

"Did she really like Howard?" he asked her once.

"Yes, I think so; in fact, I know she did. Though I couldn't see what

she saw in him myself. I suppose there was something about him. She

misses him quite a lot, so she says."

This statement Roland considered an excellent cue for an exchange of

gallantries.

"But wouldn't you miss me if I went?"

Dolly, however, was interested in her own subject.

"Yes," she went on, "she seems really worried. Only the other day she

said to me: 'Dolly, I can't get on without that boy. There's nothing to

look forward to of a Sunday now, and I get so tired of my work.' And

when I said to her: 'But, my dear Betty, there's hundreds more fish in

the sea. What about young Rogers at the post office?' she answers: 'Oh,

him! my boy's spoilt me for all that. I can't bear the sight of young

Rogers any more.' Funny, isn't it?"

Roland agreed with her. To him it was amazing.

"Well," Dolly went on, "I saw quite clearly that there was nothing for

it but that she must get hold of another young chap like your friend.

And I asked her if there was anyone else up at the school she fancied,

and she said, yes, there was; a boy she's seen you talking to once or

twice; a young, fair-haired fellow with a blue and yellow hat ribbon.

That's the best I can do. Is that any help to you? Would you know him?"

A blue and yellow hat ribbon limited the selection to members of the

School XI., and there was only one old colour who answered to that

description--Brewster in Carus Evans'.

"Oh, yes, I know him."

"Well, now, don't you think you could arrange it? Do, for my sake."

"But I don't know him well enough. I don't see how I could."

"Oh, yes, you do. Haven't I seen you talking together, and he would be

only too pleased. I am sure he would. Betty's such a nice girl. Now, do

try."

Roland promised that he would do his best, though it was not a job he

particularly fancied. Brewster was the youngest member of the XI. He

had been playing on lower side games all the season without attracting

any attention and had then surprised everyone by making a century in an

important house match. He was immediately transplanted to the first, and

though he played in only two matches he was considered to have earned

his colours. He was not, however, in any sense of the word a blood. He

was hardly known by men of Roland's standing in other houses. He was low

in form and not particularly brilliant at football. Roland knew next to

nothing about him. Still it was a fascinating situation--a girl like

Betty, who must be a good three years older than Dolly, getting keen on

such a kid. Was she in love, he wondered. He had never met anyone who

had enjoyed the privilege of having a girl in love with him. For towards

the end he had believed very little that Howard had told him. It was an

intriguing affair. And so he set himself to his task.

The difficulty, of course, was to find the auspicious moment. He hardly

ever saw Brewster except when there were a lot of other people about,

and he didn't want to ask him across to his study. People would talk;

and, besides, it would not do to spring this business on him suddenly.

He would have to lead up to it carefully. For a whole week he sought,

unsuccessfully, for an opportunity, and on the Sunday he had to confess

to Dolly that he was no nearer the attainment of her friend's desires.

"It's not as easy as you seem to think it is. We are not in the same

house, we are not in the same form, and we don't play footer on the same

ground. In fact, except that we happen to be in the same school----"

"Now! now! now! Haven't I seen you talking to him alone twice before I

even mentioned him to you? And if you could be alone with him then, when

you had no particular reason to, surely you can manage to be now, when

you have."

"But, my dear Dolly----"

"There've not got to be any buts. Either you bring along your friend or

it's all over between us."

It was not a very serious threat, and at any other stage of their

relationship Roland, considering the bother that the affair involved,

might have been glad enough to accept it as an excuse for his dismissal.

But he had determined to bring this thing off. He thought of Betty,

large, black-haired, bright-eyed, highly coloured, her full lips

moistened by the red tongue that slipped continually between them, and

Brewster, fair-haired and slim and shy. It would be amusing to see what

they would make of one another. He would carry the business through, and

as a reward for this determination luck, two days later, came his way.

He drew Brewster in the second round of the Open Fives.

On the first wet day they played it off, and as Roland was a poor

performer and Brewster a tolerably efficient one the game ended in under

half-an-hour. They had, therefore, the whole afternoon before them, and

Roland suggested that as soon as they had changed they should have tea

together in his study.

For Roland it was an exciting afternoon; he was playing, for the first

time in his life, the part of a diplomat. He had read a good many

novels in which the motive was introduced, but there it had been a

very different matter. The stage had been set skilfully; each knew the

other's thoughts without being sure of his intention; there was a rapier

duel of thrust and parry. But here the stage was set for nothing in

particular. Brewster was unaware of dramatic tension; his main idea was

to eat as much as possible.

With infinite care Roland led the conversation to a discussion of the

mentality of women. He enlarged on a favourite theme of his--the fact

that girls often fell in love with really ugly men. "I can't understand

it," he said. "Girls are such delicate, refined creatures. They want

the right coloured curtains in their bedrooms and the right coloured

cushion for their sofas; they spend hours discussing the right shade

of ribbon for their hair, and then they go and fall in love with a

ridiculous-looking man. Look at Morgan, now. He's plain and he's

bald and he's got an absurd, stubby moustache, and yet his wife is

frightfully pretty, and she seems really keen on him. I don't understand

it."

Brewster agreed that it was curious, and helped himself to another cake.

"I suppose," said Roland, "that a fellow like you knows a good deal

about girls?"

Brewster shook his head. The subject presented few attractions to him.

"No," he said, "I don't really know anything at all about them. I

haven't got a sister."

"But you don't learn about girls from your sister."

"Perhaps not. But if you haven't got a sister you don't run much chance

of seeing anyone else's. We don't know any decent ones. A few of my

friends have sisters, but they seem pretty fair asses. I keep out of

their way."

"That's rather funny, you know, because you're the sort of fellow that

girls run after."

As Roland had been discussing for some time the ugliness of the type of

man that appealed most to girls, this was hardly a compliment. Brewster

did not notice it, however. Indeed, he evinced no great interest in the

conversation. He was enjoying his tea.

"Oh, I don't think I am," he said. "At any rate none of them have run

after me, so far."

"That's all you know," said Roland, and his voice assumed a tone that

made Brewster look up quickly.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, I know someone who is doing their best to."

Brewster flushed; the hand that was carrying a cream cake to his mouth

paused in mid air.

"A girl! Who?"

"That's asking."

Roland had at last succeeded in arousing Brewster's curiosity, and he

was wise enough to refrain from satisfying it at once. If he were to

tell him that a girl down town had wanted to go for a walk with him,

Brewster would have laughed and probably thought no more about it. He

would have to fan his interest till Brewster's imagination had had time

to play upon the idea.

"She's very pretty," Roland said, "and she asked me who you were.

She was awfully keen to meet you, but I told her that it was no good

and that you wouldn't care for that sort of thing. She was very

disappointed."

"Yes, but who is she?"

"I'm not going to tell you that. Why should I give her away?"

"Oh, but do tell me."

Roland was firm.

"No; I'm jolly well not going to. It's her secret. You don't want to

meet her, do you?"

"No," Brewster grudgingly admitted; "but I'd like to know."

"I daresay you would, but I'm not going to give away a confidence.

Suppose you told me that you were keen on a girl and that you'd heard

she wouldn't have anything to do with anyone, you wouldn't like me to go

and tell her who you were, would you?"

"No."

"Of course you wouldn't. That's the sort of thing one keeps to oneself."

"Yes; but as I shall never see her----"

Roland adopted in reply the stern tone of admonition, "Of course not;

but if I told you, you'd take jolly good care that you did see her, and

then you'd tell someone else. You'd point her out and say, 'That girl

wanted me to come out for a walk with her.' You know you would, and of

course the other fellow would promise not to tell anyone and of course

he would. It would be round the whole place in a week, and think how the

poor girl would feel being laughed at by everyone because a fellow four

years younger than herself wouldn't have anything to do with her."

"What! Four years older than me."

"About that."

"And she's pretty, you say?"

"Jolly."

There was a pause.

"You know, Whately," he began, "I'd rather ..." then broke off. "Oh,

look here, do tell me."

Roland shook his head.

"I don't give away secrets."

"But why did you tell me anything about it at all?"

"I don't know; it just cropped up, didn't it? I thought it might amuse

you."

"Well, I think it's rotten of you. I shan't be able to think of anything

else until I know."

Which was, of course, exactly what Roland wanted. He knew how Brewster's

imagination would play with the idea. Betty would become for him

strange, wistful, passionate. Four years older than himself he would

picture her as the Lilith of old, the eternal temptress. In herself

she was nothing. If he had met her in the streets two days earlier he

would have hardly noticed her. "A pleasant, country girl," he would have

said, and let her pass out of his thoughts. But now the imagination

that colours all things would make her irresistible, and when he met her

she would be identified with his dream.

Next morning Brewster ran across to him during break.

"I say, Whately, do tell me who she is."

"No; I told you I wasn't going to."

"Well, then. Oh, look here! Is it Dorothy Jones?"

Dorothy Jones was the daughter of the owner of a cycle shop and was much

admired in the school.

"Would you like it to be?" Roland asked.

"I don't know. Perhaps. But is it, though?"

"Perhaps."

"It is Dorothy Jones, isn't it? It is her?"

"If you know, why do you ask me?"

"Oh, don't be a fool! Is it Dorothy Jones?"

"Perhaps."

"Well, if it isn't her, is it Mary Gardiner?"

"It is Mary Gardiner," Roland mocked. "It is she, isn't it?"

"Oh, you're awful," said Brewster, and walked away.

But that evening he came over to the School house studies and, just

before Hall, a small boy ran across to the reading-room to tell Roland

that Brewster was in the cloisters and would like to speak to him.

"Well," said Roland, "and what is it?"

"It's about the girl."

Roland affected a weary impatience.

"Oh, Lord, but I thought we'd finished with all that. I told you that I

wasn't going to give her away."

"Yes, I know; but ... ah, well, look here, I must know who the girl is.

No, don't interrupt. Will you tell me if I promise to come out with her

once?"

Roland thought for a moment. He had his man now, but it would not do to

hurry things. He must play for safety a little longer.

"Oh, yes, I know that game," he said. "I shall tell you her name and

then you'll wish you hadn't promised and you'll get frightened, and when

the time comes you will have sprained an ankle in a house match and

won't be able to come for a walk. That won't do at all."

"But I swear I wouldn't do that," Brewster protested. "Really, I

wouldn't."

"Yes, and I promised that I wasn't going to tell."

"But that's so silly. Suppose now that I was really keen on her. For all

you know, or I, for that matter, I may have seen her walking about the

town and thought her jolly pretty without knowing who she was."

"And I'm damned certain you haven't. You told me that you didn't take

any interest in girls."

"No, but really, honest, man, I may have seen her. Only this morning as

I was going down to Fort's after breakfast I saw an absolutely ripping

girl, and I believe it was me she smiled at. It's very likely her."

"Yes, yes, I dare say, but----"

"Oh, come on, do tell me, and I promise you I'll come and see her;

honest, I will."

But at that moment the roll-bell issued its cracked summons.

"If you don't run like sin you'll be late for roll-call, and that'll

finish everything," Roland said, and Brewster turned and sprinted across

the courts.

Roland walked back to his study in a mood of deep self-satisfaction. He

was carrying an extremely difficult job to a triumphant close. It did

not occur to him that the rôle he filled was not a particularly noble

one and that an unpleasantly worded label could be discovered for it. He

was living in the days of unreflecting action. He did, or refrained from

doing, the things he wanted to do, without a minute analysis of motive,

but in accordance with a definite code of rules. He lived his life as he

played cricket. There were rewards and there were penalties. If you hit

across a straight long hop you ran a chance of being leg before, and if

the ball hit your pad you went straight back to the pavilion. You played

to win, but you played the game, provided that you played it according

to the rules. It did not matter to Roland what the game was. And the

affair of Betty and Brewster was a game that he was winning fairly and

squarely.

Next morning he achieved victory. He met Brewster during break and

presented his ultimatum.

"I won't tell you her name," he said. "I promised not to. It wouldn't be

the game. But I tell you what I will do, though. If you'll promise to

come out for a walk with me on Sunday I'll arrange for her to meet us

somewhere, and then you can see what you think of each other. Now, what

do you say to that?"

Brewster's curiosity was so roused that he accepted eagerly, and next

Sunday they set out together towards Cold Harbour.

About a mile and a half from the school a sunken lane ran down the side

of a steep hill towards the railway. The lane could be approached from

two sides, and from the shelter of a thick hedge it was possible to

observe the whole country-side without being seen. It was here that they

had arranged their meeting.

They found the two girls waiting when they arrived. Betty looked very

smart in a dark blue coat and skirt and a small hat that fitted tightly

over her head. She smiled at Roland, and the sight, after months, of her

fresh-coloured face, with its bright eyes and wide, moist mouth, sent a

sudden thrill through him--half fear, half excitement.

"So you've managed to arrange it," said Dolly. "How clever of you."

"Very nice of him to come," said Betty, her eyes fixed on Brewster, who

stood awkwardly, his hands in his pockets, kicking one heel against the

other.

For a few minutes they talked together, stupid, inconsequent badinage,

punctuated by giggles, till Betty, as usual, reminded them that they

would only have an hour together.

"About time we paired off, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," said Roland. "Come along, Dolly," and they began to walk

down the lane. At the corner they turned and saw the other two standing

together--Betty, taller, confident and all-powerful; Brewster, looking

up at her, scared and timid, his hands clasped behind him.

"He looks a bit shy, doesn't he?" said Dolly.

Roland laughed.

"He won't be for long, I expect."

"Rather not. He'll soon get used to her. Betty doesn't let her boys stop

shy with her for long. She makes them do as she wants them."

And when they returned an hour later they saw the two sitting side by

side chatting happily. But as soon as they reached them Brewster became

silent and shy, and looked neither of them in the face.

"Had a good time?" asked Dolly.

"Ask him," she answered.

And they laughed, all except Brewster, and made arrangements to meet

again, only a little earlier the next week.

"Well," said Roland, as soon as they were out of earshot, "and how did

you enjoy yourself?"

Brewster admitted that it had been pretty good.

"Only pretty good?"

"Well, I don't know," he said, "it was all right. Yes, it was ripping,

really; but it was so different from what I had expected."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh, well, you know. I felt so awkward; she started everything. I

didn't have any say in it at all. I had thought it was up to me to do

all that."

"Betty's not that sort."

"No, but it's a funny business."

"You are coming out next week, though?"

"Rather!"

And next week Dolly, as soon as she was alone with Roland, began to ask

him questions about Brewster: "What did he say to you? What did he think

of her? Was she nice to him? You must tell me all about it."

"Oh, I think he enjoyed himself all right. She startled him a bit."

"Did she? What did he say? Do tell me."

She asked him question after question, and he had to repeat to her every

word he could remember of Brewster's conversation. Did he still feel

shy? Did he think Betty beautiful? Was he at all in love with her? And

then Roland began to ask what Betty had thought of Brewster. Had she

preferred him to Howard? She wasn't disappointed in him? Did she like

him better than the other boys? They talked eagerly.

"Wouldn't it be fun to go back and have a look at them?" said Dolly.

"I'd give anything to see them together."

Their eyes met, and suddenly, with a fervour they had never reached

before, they kissed.

CHAPTER VI

APRIL'S LOOKING-GLASS

For April the term which brought Roland so much excitement was slow in

passing. In spite of the disastrous evening at the ball, Roland's return

to school left a void in her life. When she woke in the morning and

stretched herself in bed before getting up she would ask herself what

good thing she could expect that day to bring her. When she felt happy

she would demand the reason of herself. "Over what are you happy?" she

would ask herself. "In five minutes' time you will get up. You will

put on your dressing-gown and hurry down the corridor to the bathroom.

You will dress hurriedly, but come down all the same a little late for

breakfast. You will find that your father has eaten, as is his wont,

more than his share of toast, which will mean that you, being the last

down, will have to go without it. You will rush down to school saying

over to yourself the dates of your history lesson. You will hang your

hat and coat on the fourth row of pegs and on the seventh peg from the

right. From nine o'clock to ten you will be heard your history lesson.

From ten o'clock till eleven you will take down notes on chemistry.

From eleven to a quarter past there will be an interval, during which

you will try to find a friend to help you with the Latin translation,

of which you prepared only the first thirty lines last night. From a

quarter-past eleven till a quarter-past twelve you will be heard that

lesson. At a quarter-past twelve you will attend a lecture on English

literature, which will last till one o'clock. You will then have lunch,

and as to-day is Tuesday you know that your lunch will consist of boiled

mutton and caper sauce, followed by apple dumpling. In the afternoon

you will have gymnastics and a music lesson, after which there will be

an hour of Mademoiselle's French conversation class. You will then come

home. You will hurry your tea in the hope of being able to finish your

preparation before your father comes back from the office at twenty

minutes to seven, because when once he is back your mother will begin to

talk, and when she begins to talk work becomes impossible. You will then

dine with your parents at half-past seven. You will sit perfectly quiet

at the table and not say a word, while your mother talks and talks and

father listens and occasionally says, 'Yes, mother,' or 'No, mother.'

After dinner you will read a book in the drawing-room till your mother

reminds you that it is nine o'clock and time that you were in bed. You

have, in fact, before you a day similar in every detail to yesterday,

and similar in every detail to to-morrow. If you think anything

different is going to happen to you then you are a little fool." And

April would have to confess that this self-catechism was true. "Nothing

happens," she would say. "One day is like another, and I am a little

fool to wake up in the morning excited about nothing at all."

But all the same she was excited and she did feel, in spite of reason,

that something was bound to happen soon. "Things cannot go on like this

for ever," she told herself. And, looking into the future, she came

gradually to look upon the day of Roland's return from school as the

event which would alter, in a way she could not discern, the whole tenor

of her life. It was not in these words that the idea was presented to

her. "It may be different during the holidays when Roland is here."

That was her first thought, from which the words "when Roland is here"

detached themselves, starting another train of thought, that "Life when

Roland is here is always different"; and she began to look forward

to the holidays, counting the days till his return. "Things will be

different then."

It was not love, it was not friendship; it was simply the belief that

Roland's presence would be a key to that world other than this, of which

shadowy intimations haunted her continually. Roland became the focus for

her disquiet, her longing, her vague appreciation of the eternal essence

made manifest for her in the passing phenomena of life.

"When Roland comes back ..." And though she marked on the calendar that

hung in her bedroom April 2, the last day of her own term, with a big

red cross, it was April 5 that she regarded as the real beginning of her

holidays. And when she came down to breakfast and her father said to

her, "Only seven more days now, April," she would answer gaily, "Yes,

only a week. Isn't it lovely?" But to herself she would add, "Ten days,

only ten days more!"

And so she missed altogether the usual last day excitement. She did not

wake on that first morning happy with the delicious thought that she

could lie in bed for an extra ten minutes if she liked. She had not yet

begun her holidays.

But two days later she was in a fever of expectation. In twenty-four

hours' time Roland would be home. How slowly the day passed. In the

evening she said she was tired and went to bed before dinner, so that

the next day might come quickly for her. But when she got to bed she

found that she could not sleep, and though she repeated the word

"abracadabra" many hundred times and counted innumerable sheep passing

through innumerable gates, she lay awake till after midnight, hearing

hour after hour strike. And when at last sleep came to her it was light

and fitful and she woke often.

Next day she did not know what to do with herself. She tried to read and

could not. She tried to sew and could not. She ran up and down stairs

on trifling errands in order to pass the time. In vain she tried to

calm herself. "What are you getting so excited about? What do you think

is going to happen? What can happen? The most that can happen is that

he will come round with his father in the evening, and you know well

enough by now what that will mean. Your mother will talk and his father

will say, 'Yes, Mrs Curtis,' and 'Really, Mrs Curtis,' and you and

Roland will hardly exchange a word with one another. You are absurdly

excited over nothing."

But logic was of no avail, and all the afternoon she fidgeted with

impatience. By tea-time she was in a state of repressed hysteria. She

sat in the window-seat looking down the road in the direction from which

he would have to come. "I wonder if he will come without his father. It

would be so dear of him if he would, but I don't suppose he will. No, of

course he won't. It's silly of me to think of it. He'll have to wait for

his father; he always does. That means he won't be here at the earliest

till after six. And it's only ten minutes to five now."

And to make things worse, seldom had she found her mother more annoying.

"Now, why don't you go for a walk, April, dear?" she said. "It's such a

lovely evening and you've been indoors nearly all day. It isn't good,

and I was saying to your father only the other day, 'Father, dear, I'm

sure April isn't up to the mark. She looks so pale nowadays.'"

"I'm all right, mother."

"No, but are you, dear? You're looking really pale. I'm sure I ought to

ask Dr Dunkin to come and see you."

"But I'm all right--really, I'm all right, mother. I know when anything

is wrong with me."

"But you don't, April, dear. That's just the point. Don't you remember

that time when you insisted on going to the tennis party and assured

us that you were quite well, and when you came back we found you had

a temperature of 101° and that you were sickening for measles? I was

saying to Dr Dunkin only this morning: 'Dr Dunkin, I'm really not

satisfied about our little April. I think I shall have to ask you to

give her a tonic'; and he said to me: 'Yes, that's right, Mrs Curtis;

you bring me along to her and I'll set her straight.'"

April put her hands up to her head and tried not to listen, but her

mother's voice flowed on:

"And now, dear, do go out for a walk--just a little one."

"But, mother, dear, I don't want to, really, and I'm feeling so tired."

"There, what did I say? You're feeling tired and you've done nothing all

day. There must be something wrong with you. I shall certainly ask Dr

Dunkin to come and see you to-morrow."

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, mother. I'll do anything you like to-morrow. If

you'll only leave me alone to-night."

But Mrs Curtis went on talking, and April grew more and more

exasperated, and the minutes went past and Roland did not come. Six

struck and half-past six, and a few minutes later she heard her father's

latch-key in the door. And then the whole question of her health was

dragged out again.

"I was saying to you only yesterday, father, that our little April

wasn't as well as she ought to be. She has overworked, I think. Last

night she went to bed early and to-day she looks quite pale, and she

says that she feels tired although she hasn't really done anything. I

must send for Dr Dunkin to-morrow."

It seemed to April that the voice would never stop. It beat and beat

upon her brain, like the ticking of the watch that reminded her of the

flying moments. "He won't come now," she said; "he won't come now."

Seven o'clock had struck, the lamps were lit, evening had descended upon

the street. He had never come as late as this before. But she still sat

at the window, gazing down the street towards the figures, that became

distinct for a moment in the lamplight. "He will not come now," she

said, and suddenly she felt limp, tired, incapable of resistance. She

put her head upon her knees and began to sob.

In a moment her mother's arms were round her. "But, darling, what is it,

April, dear?"

She could not speak. She shook her head, tried desperately to make a

sign that she was all right, that she would rather be left alone; but

it was no use. She felt too bitterly the need for human sympathy. She

turned, flung her arms about her mother's neck, and began to sob and

sob.

"Oh, mother, mother," she cried. "I'm so miserable. I don't know what to

do. I don't know what to do."

* * * * *

Next morning Dr Dunkin felt her pulse, prescribed a tonic and told her

not to stay too much indoors.

"Now, you'll be all right, dear," her mother said. "Dr Dunkin's

medicines are splendid."

April smiled quietly. "Yes, I expect that was what was wanted. I think I

worked a little too hard last term."

"I'm sure you did, my dear. I shall write to Mrs Clarke about it. I

can't have my little girl getting run down."

And that afternoon April met Roland in the High Street. It was the first

time that she had seen him alone since the evening of the dance, and

she found him awkward and embarrassed. They said a few things of no

importance--about the holidays, the weather and their acquaintances.

Then April said that she must be going home, and Roland made no effort

to detain her--did not even make any suggestion about coming round to

see her.

"So that is what you have been looking forward to for over a month,"

she said to herself, as he passed out of sight behind an angle of the

road. "This is the date you wanted to mark upon your calendar with a

red cross. Little fool. What did you think you were doing? And what has

it turned out to be in the end? Five minutes' discussion of indifferent

things. A fine event to make such a fuss about; and what else did you

expect?"

She was not bitter. It was one of those mild days that in early spring

surprise us with a promise of summer, on which the heart is stirred with

the crowded glory of life and the sense of widening horizons. The long

stretch of roofs and chimney stacks became beautiful in the subdued

sunlight. It was an hour that in the strong might have quickened the

hunger for adventure, but that to April brought a mood of chastened,

quiet resignation. She appreciated, as she had not done before, the

tether by which her scope was measured. For the last month she had made

Roland's return a focus for the ambitions and desires and yearnings

towards an intenser way of living, for which of herself she had been

unable to find expression. This, in a confused manner, she understood.

"I can do nothing by myself. I have to live in other people. And what I

am now I shall be always. All my life I shall be dependent on someone

else, or on some interest that is outside myself. And whether I am happy

or unhappy depends upon some other person. That is my nature, and I

cannot go beyond my nature." When she reached home she sat for a long

time in the window-seat, her hands folded in her lap. "This will be

my whole life," she said. "I am not of those who may go out in search

of happiness." And she thought that if romance did not come to her,

she would remain all her life sitting at a window. "Of myself I can do

nothing."

CHAPTER VII

A SORRY BUSINESS

April did not see very much of Roland during the holidays, and was not,

on the whole, sorry. Now that the hysterical excitement over his return

had passed, she judged it better to let their friendship lapse. She did

not want any repetition of that disastrous evening, and thought that it

would be easier to resume their friendship on its old basis after the

long interval of the summer term. Roland was still a little piqued by

what he considered her absurd behaviour, and had resolved to let the

first step come from her.

This estrangement was a disappointment to his people.

"Have you noticed, my dear, that Roland's hardly been round to the

Curtises' at all these holidays?" Mr Whately said to his wife one

evening. "I hope there has not been a row or anything. I rather wish

you'd try and find out."

And so next day Mrs Whately made a guarded remark to her son about

April's appearance: "What a big girl she's getting. And she's prettier

every day. If you're not careful you'll have all the boys in the place

running after her and cutting you out."

Roland answered in an off-hand manner, "They can for all I care,

mother."

"Oh, but, Roland, you shouldn't say that; I thought you were getting on

so well together last holidays. We were even saying----"

But Roland never allowed himself to be forced into a confidence.

"Oh, please, mother, don't. There was nothing in it; really, there

wasn't."

"You haven't had a row, have you, Roland?"

"Of course not, mother. What should we have a row about?"

"I don't know, dear. I only thought----"

"Well, you needn't worry about us, mother; we're all right."

Roland was by no means pleased at what seemed to him a distinct case

of interference. It arrived, too, at a most inopportune moment, for he

had been just then wondering whether he ought not to forget about his

high-minded resolves and try to make it up with April. His mother's

inquiries, however, decided him. He was not going to have others

arranging that sort of thing for him. "And for all I know," he said

to himself, "Mrs Curtis may be at the back of this. I shan't go round

there again these holidays." And this was the more unfortunate, because

if the intimacy between Roland and April had been resumed, it is more

than likely that Roland, at the beginning of the summer term, would

have decided to give up Dolly altogether. Both he and Brewster were a

little tired of it; the first interest had passed, and they had actually

discussed the wisdom of dropping the whole business.

"After all," said Brewster, "it can't go on for ever. It'll have to stop

some time, and next term we shall both be fairly high in the school,

house prefects and all that, and we shall have to be pretty careful what

we do."

Roland was inclined to agree with him, but his curiosity was still

awake.

"It's not so easy to break a thing like this. Let's wait till the end of

the term. The summer holidays are a long time, and by the time we come

back they'll very likely have picked up someone else."

"All right," said Brewster, "I don't mind. And it does add an interest

to things."

And so the affair went on smoothly and comfortably, a pleasant interlude

among the many good gifts of a summer term--cricket and swimming and

the long, lazy evenings. Nothing, indeed, occurred to ruffle the

complete happiness of Roland's life, till one Monday morning during

break Brewster came running across to the School house studies with the

disastrous news that his house master had found out all about it. It had

happened thus:

On the previous Saturday Roland had sent up a note in break altering

the time of an appointment. It was the morning of a school match and

Brewster received the note on his way down to the field. He was a little

late, and as soon as he had read the note he shoved it into his pocket

and thought no more about it. During the afternoon he slipped, trying

to bring off a one-handed catch in the slips, and tore the knee of his

trousers. The game ended late and he had only just time to change and

take his trousers round to the matron to be mended before lock-up. In

the right-hand pocket the matron discovered Roland's note, and, judging

its contents singular, placed it before Mr Carus Evans.

As Roland walked back with Brewster from the tuck-shop a small boy ran

up to tell him that Mr Carus Evans would like to see him directly after

lunch.

Roland was quite calm as he walked up the hill three hours later. One

is only frightened when one is uncertain of one's fate. When a big row

is on, in which one may possibly be implicated, one endures agonies,

wondering whether or not one will be found out. But when it is settled,

when one is found out, what is there to do? One must let things take

their course; nothing can alter it. There is no need for fret or fever.

Roland was able to consider his position with detached interest.

He had been a fool to send that note. Notes always got lost or dropped

and the wrong people picked them up. How many fellows had not got

themselves bunked that way, notes and confirmation? They were the two

great menaces, the two hidden rocks. Probably confirmation was the

more dangerous. On the whole, more fellows had got the sack through

confirmation, but notes were not much better. What an ass he had been.

He would never send a note again, never; he swore it to himself, and

then reflected a little dismally that he might very likely never have

the opportunity.

Still, that was rather a gloomy view to take. And he stood more chance

with Carus Evans than he would have done with any other master.

Carus Evans had always hated him, and because he hated him would be

desperately anxious to treat him fairly. As a result he would be sure to

underpunish him. It is always safer to have a big row with a master who

dislikes you than with one who is your friend. And from this reflection

Roland drew what comfort he might.

Mr Carus Evans sat writing at his desk when Roland came in. He looked up

and then went on with his letter. It was an attempt to make Roland feel

uncomfortable and to place him at the start at a disadvantage. It was

a characteristic action, for Carus Evans was a weak man. His house was

probably the slackest in the school. It had no one in the XV., Brewster

was its sole representative in the XI. and it did not possess one school

prefect. This should not have been, for Carus Evans was a bachelor and

all his energies were available. He had no second interest to attract

him, but he was weak when he should have been strong; he chose the wrong

prefects and placed too much confidence in them. He was not a natural

leader.

For a good two minutes he went on writing, then put down his pen.

"Ah, yes, yes, Whately. Sit down, will you? Now then, I've been talking

to one of the boys in my house and it seems that you and he have been

going out together and meeting some girls in the town. Is that so?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the suggestion came from you, I gather?"

"Yes, sir."

"This is a very serious thing, Whately. I suppose you realise that?"

"I suppose so, sir."

"Of course it is, and especially so for a boy in your position. Now,

I don't know what attitude the headmaster will adopt, but of this I

am quite certain. A great deal will depend on whether you tell me the

truth. I shall know if you tell me a lie. You've got to tell me the

whole story. Now, how did this thing start?"

"On the first night of the Christmas term, sir."

"How?"

"I met them at a dance in the pageant grounds."

"The pageant grounds are out of bounds. You ought to know that."

"It was the first night, sir."

"Don't quibble with me. They're out of bounds. Well, what happened

next?"

"I danced with her, sir."

"Were you alone?"

"No, sir."

"Who was with you?"

"I can't tell you, sir."

"If you don't tell me----"

"He's left now, sir. It wouldn't be fair."

They looked each other in the face and in that moment Carus Evans

realised that, in spite of their positions, Roland was the stronger.

"Oh, well, never mind that; we can leave it till later on. And I suppose

you made an appointment?"

"No, sir."

"What?"

"You asked me if I made an appointment, sir. I answered I didn't."

Roland was not going to give him the least assistance. Indeed, in the

joy of being able to play once again the old game of baiting masters,

that had delighted him so much when he had been in the middle school

and that he had to abandon so reluctantly when he attained the dignity

of the Fifths and Sixths, he had almost forgotten that he was in a

singularly difficult situation. He would make "old Carus" ask him a

question for every answer that he gave. And he saw that for the moment

Carus had lost his length.

"Well, then, let me see. Yes, well--er--well, where did you meet her

next?"

"In a lane beyond Cold Harbour, sir."

"Did you go there alone?"

"No, sir."

"You were with this other fellow?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what did you do?"

"Do, sir?"

"Yes, do. Didn't you hear me?"

"Yes, sir, but, Do? I don't quite understand you. What exactly do you

mean by the word 'do'?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean, Whately. You flirted, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir. I suppose that's what I did do. I flirted."

"I mean you held her hand?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you kissed her?"

"Yes, sir."

"Disgusting! Simply disgusting! Is this place a heathen brothel or a

Christian school?" Carus' face was red, and he drove his fingers through

the hair at the back of his neck. "You go out on a Sunday afternoon and

kiss a shop-girl. What a hobby for a boy in the XV. and Sixth!" And he

began to stamp backwards and forwards up and down the room.

This fine indignation did not, however, impress Roland in the least.

Carus appeared to him to be less disgusted than interested--pruriently

interested--and that he was angry with himself rather than with Roland,

because he knew instinctively that he was not feeling as a master should

feel when confronted with such a scandal. It was a forced emotion that

was inspiring the fierce flow of words.

"Do you know what this sort of thing leads to?" he was saying. "But, of

course, you do. I could trust you to know anything like that. Your whole

life may be ruined by it."

"But I didn't do anything wrong."

"Perhaps you didn't, not this time, though I've only your word for

it; but you would have, sooner or later, under different conditions.

There's only one end to that sort of thing. And even if you were all

right yourself, how did you know that Brewster was going to be? That's

the beastly part of it. That's what sickens me with you. Your own life

is your own to do what you like with, but you've no right to contaminate

others. You encourage this young fellow to go about with a girl four

years older than himself, about whom you know nothing. How could you

tell what might be happening to him? He may not have your self-control.

He'd never have started this game but for you, and now that he's once

begun he may be unable to break himself of it. You may have ruined his

whole life, mayn't you?"

Roland considered the question.

"I suppose so, but I didn't look at it that way."

"Of course, you didn't. But it's the results that count. That's what

you've got to keep in mind; actions are judged by their results. And

now, what do you imagine is going to happen to you? I suppose you know

that if I go across and report you to the headmaster that it'll mean the

next train back to London?"

"Yes, sir."

"And if I did, you'd have no cause for complaint. It would be what you'd

deserved, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a pause. They looked at each other. Carus Evans hoped that he

had frightened Roland, but he had not. Roland knew that Carus did not

intend to get him expelled. He would not have talked like that if he

had. He was trying to make Roland feel that he was conferring a favour

on him in allowing him to stop on.

"There's no reason why I should feel kindly disposed towards you," Carus

said. "We've never got on well together. You've worked badly in my form.

I've never regarded you as a credit to the school. When you were a

small boy you were rowdy and bumptious, and now that you have reached a

position of authority you have become superior and conceited. There's

no reason why I, personally, should wish to see you remain a member of

the school. As regards my own house, I cannot yet judge what harm you

may have done me. You've started the poison here. Brewster will have

told his friends. One bad apple will corrupt a cask. I don't know what

trouble you may have laid up for me."

"No, sir."

"But all the same, I know what it means to expel a boy. He's a marked

man for life. I'm going to give you another chance."

"Thank you, sir."

"But you've got to make this thing good first. You've got to go to the

headmaster yourself and tell him all about it--now, at once. Do you

see?"

"Yes, sir."

It was going to be an awkward business, and Roland made no attempt to

conceal it from himself. It was just on the half-hour as he walked

across the courts. Afternoon school was beginning. Groups had collected

round the classrooms, waiting for the master to let them in. Johnson

waved to him from a study window and told him to hurry up and help them

with the con.

"Don't wait for me," Roland called back. "I've got one or two things to

do. I shall be a little late."

"Slacker," Johnson laughed.

It was funny to see the machine revolving so smoothly, with himself, to

all outward appearance, a complacently efficient cog in it. He supposed

that a criminal must feel like this when he watched people hurry past

him in the streets; all of them so intent upon their own affairs and

himself seemingly one with them, but actually so much apart.

He knocked at the headmaster's door.

"Come in."

The headmaster was surprised to see Roland at such an hour.

"Yes, Whately?" he said, and then appeared to remember something, and

began to fumble among some papers on his desk. "One moment, Whately; I

knew there was something I wanted to speak to you about. Ah, yes, here

it is. Your essay on Milton. Will you just come over here a minute? I

wanted to have a few words with you about it. Sit down, won't you? Now,

let me see, where is it? Ah, yes, here it is: now you say, 'Milton was a

Puritan in spite of himself. Satan is the hero of the poem.' Now I want

to be quite certain what you mean by that. I'm not going to say that you

are wrong. But I want you to be quite certain in your own mind as to

what you mean yourself."

And Roland began to explain how Milton had let himself be carried away

by his theme, that his nature was so impregnated by the sense of defeat

that defeat seemed to him a nobler thing than victory. Satan had become

the focus for his emotions on the overthrow of the Commonwealth.

"Yes, yes, I see that, but surely, Whately, the Commonwealth was

the Puritan party. If Milton was so distressed by the return of the

Royalists, how do you square this view with your statement, 'Milton

was a Puritan in spite of himself'? Surely if his puritanism was only

imposed, he would have welcomed the return of the drama and a more

highly coloured life."

Roland made a gallant effort to explain, but all the time he kept saying

to himself, "I came here for a confessional, and yet here I am sitting

down in the Chief's best arm-chair, enjoying a friendly chat. I must

stop it somehow." But it was excessively difficult. He began to lose the

thread of his argument and contradicted himself; and the Chief was so

patient, listening to him so attentively, waiting till he had finished.

"But, my dear Whately," the Chief said, "you've just said that _Comus_

is a proof of his love of colour and display, and yet you say in the

same breath...."

Would it never cease? And how on earth was he at the end going to

introduce the subject of his miserable amours? He had never anticipated

anything like this. But at last it was finished.

"You see what you've done, Whately? You've picked up a phrase somewhere

or other about the paganism of Milton and the nobility of Satan and you

have not taken the trouble to think it out. You've just accepted it. I

don't say that your statement could not be justified. But it's you who

should be able to justify it, not I. You should never make any statement

in an essay that you can't substantiate with facts. It's a good essay,

though, quite good." And he returned to his papers. He had forgotten

altogether that Roland had come unasked to see him.

It was one of the worst moments of Roland's life. He stood silent in the

middle of the room while the Chief continued his letter, thinking the

interview was at an end.

"Sir," he said at last.

The headmaster looked up quickly and said a little impatiently, for he

was a busy man and resented interruption, "Well, Whately? Yes; what is

it?"

"I came to see you, sir."

"Oh, yes, of course you did. I forgot. Well, what is it?"

"Sir, I've come to tell you that Mr Carus Evans told me to come and

report myself to you and say that--well, sir--that I've been going out

for walks with a girl in the town."

"What!"

"Yes, sir, a girl in the town, and that I'd asked a boy in his house to

come with me, sir."

The Chief rose from his chair and walked across to the mantelpiece.

There was a long pause.

"But I don't quite understand, Whately. You've been going out with some

girl in the town?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you've encouraged some boy in Mr Carus Evans' house to accompany

you?"

"Yes, sir."

"And he, I suppose, has been going for walks with a girl as well?"

"Yes, sir."

There was another long pause, during which Roland realised that he

had chosen the worst possible moment for his confession. Whatever

decision the Chief might arrive at would be influenced, not only by

his inevitable disappointment at the failure of a boy in whom he had

trusted, but by its violent contrast with the friendly discussion

over the essay and the natural annoyance of a busy man who has been

interrupted in an important piece of work to discuss an unpleasant

situation that has arisen unexpectedly. When the Chief at last began to

speak there was an impatience in his voice that would have been absent

if Roland had tackled him after dinner.

"I don't know," he said. "I am tempted sometimes to give up faith

in you fellows altogether. I never know where I am with any of you.

I feel as though I were sitting upon a volcano. Everything seems

quiet and satisfactory and then suddenly the volcano breaks out and I

find that the boys in whom I have placed, or am thinking of placing,

responsibility have deceived me. Do you realise the hypocrisy of your

behaviour during the last year? You have been meeting Mr Carus Evans and

myself on friendly, straightforward terms, with an open look on your

face, and all the time, behind our backs, you've been philandering with

girls in the town. I haven't asked you for any details and I am not

going to; that doesn't enter into the question at all. You've been false

and doublefaced. You've been acting a lie for a year. It's the sort of

thing that makes me sick of the whole lot of you. You can go."

Roland walked back to the studies, perplexed and miserable. The word

"deceit" had cut hard into him. He loathed crookedness and he had always

considered himself dead straight. It was a boast of his that he had

never told a lie, at least not to a boy; masters were different. Of

course they were, and it was absurd to pretend they weren't. Everyone

did things that they wouldn't care to tell the Chief. There was a

barrier between. The relationship was not open like friendship. He saw

the Chief's point of view, but he did not consider it a sound one. He

disliked these fine gradations of conduct, this talk of acting a lie:

things were either black or white. He remembered how the Chief had once

come round the upper dormitories and had endeavoured to persuade him

that it was acting a lie to get into bed without cleaning his teeth. He

had never understood why. An unclean act, perhaps, but acting a lie! oh,

no, it wouldn't do. It was an unfair method of tackling the problem.

It was hitting a man in the back, this appeal to a better nature. Life

should be played like cricket, according to rules. You could either

play for safety and score slowly, or you could run risks and hit across

straight half-volleys. If one missed it one was out and that was the

end of it. One didn't talk about acting a lie to the bowler because

one played at the ball as though it were outside the leg stump. Why

couldn't the Chief play the game like an umpire? Roland knew that he had

done a thing which, in the eyes of authority, was wrong. He admitted

that. He had known it was wrong all the time. He had been found out;

he was prepared for punishment. That was the process of life. One took

risks and paid the penalty. The issue was to Roland childishly simple,

and he could not see why all these good people should complicate it so

unnecessarily with their talk of hypocrisy and deceit.

That evening the headmaster wrote to Roland's father:

DEAR Mr WHATELY,--I write to inform you of a matter that will

cause you, I fear, a good deal of pain. I have discovered that for

the last year Roland has been in the habit of going out for walks

on Sunday afternoons with a young girl in the town, and that he

has encouraged another and younger boy to accompany him. These

walks resulted, I am sure, in nothing beyond a little harmless

flirtation, and I do not regard the actual issue as important. I

do consider, however, and I think that in this you will agree with

me, that Roland's conduct in the matter is most reprehensible. It

has involved a calculated and prolonged deception of you, his

parent, and of us, his schoolmasters, and he has proved himself,

I fear, unworthy of the responsibility of prefectship that I had

hoped to place in him next term. If he were a younger boy the

obvious course would be a sound thrashing. But Roland is too old

for that. Perhaps he is too old to be at school at all. The leaving

age of nineteen is arbitrary. Boys develop at such different ages;

and though I should not myself have thought so before this affair

arose, it may very well be that Roland has already passed beyond

the age at which it is wise and, indeed, safe to keep him any

longer at a school. For all we know, this trouble may prove to have

been a blessing in disguise, and will have protected him from more

serious difficulties. At any rate, I do not feel that I should be

doing my duty by you or by the other parents who place the welfare

of their boys in my hands if I were to keep Roland here after the

summer. There is, of course, in this not the least suggestion of

expulsion. Roland will leave at the end of the term with many of

his contemporaries in the ordinary course of events. And he will

become, if he wishes, as I hope he will wish, a member of the old

Fernhurstian Society. Perhaps you may yourself decide to come down

and have a talk with Roland. If so, perhaps we might discuss his

future together. I do not myself see why this should prejudice in

any way his going up to the University in a year's time. Of course

he could not go up now as he has not yet passed responsions.

I very much hope that you will come down and that we shall

be able to discuss the whole matter from every point of view.

Sincerely yours,

J. F. HARRISON.

This letter arrived at Hammerton by the evening post. Mr Whately had

that morning received a letter from Roland, written before the row, with

an account of a house game in which he had made 59 runs and taken 3

wickets. Mr Whately was most excited.

"He's really doing remarkably well," he said, after dinner. "He says

that he's pretty certain for his second XI. colours, and I can't think

why they don't give him a trial for the first. I know that Fernhurst

have a pretty strong side this year, but they ought to try all the men

they've got."

"He ought to get in next year at any rate," said his wife.

"Next year! Of course there should be no doubt about that at all. But

I should like to see him get in this. It will make a big difference to

his last term if he knows he's safe for his place. It's always a little

worrying having to play for one's colours, and I should like him to have

a really good last term. He's deserved it; he's worked hard; he's been a

real success at Fernhurst."

His soliloquy was at this point interrupted by the double knock of the

postman. Mr Whately jumped up at once.

"The Fernhurst postmark, my dear," he said. "I wonder what this can be

about. The headmaster's writing!"

He tore open the envelope eagerly and began to read.

"Well, dear?" said his wife.

He said nothing, but handed the letter across to her. She read it

through and then sat forward in her chair, her hands lying on her knees.

"Poor darling," she said. "So that's why he saw so little of April last

holidays."

"Yes, I suppose that's the reason."

"Do you think he was in love with her?"

"With April?"

"No, of course not, dear. With this girl at Fernhurst?"

"I don't know. How could I tell?"

And again they sat in silence. It was such a long while since they had

been called upon to face a serious situation. For many years now they

had lived upon the agreeable surface of an ordered life. They were

unprepared for this disquieting intrusion.

"And what's going to happen now?" she said at last. "I suppose you'll

have to go down and see him."

"Yes, I think so. Yes, certainly. I ought to go down to-morrow."

"And what will you say to him?"

"I don't know. What is it the headmaster says?"

She handed him the letter and he fumbled with it. "Here it is. 'I do

not see myself why this should prejudice in any way his going up to the

University.' That's what the headmaster says. But I don't really see

how we could manage it. After all, what would happen? He would have to

go to a crammer's and everyone would ask questions. We have always said

how good the Fernhurst education is, and now they'll begin to wonder

why we've changed our minds. If we take Roland away and send him to a

crammer's they would be sure to think something was up. You know what

people are. It would never do."

"No, I suppose not. But it seems rather hard on Roland if he's got to

give up Oxford."

"Well, it will be his own fault, won't it?"

"We haven't heard the whole story yet."

"I know; but what's the good of discussing it. He knew he was doing

something he ought not to be doing. He can't expect not to have to pay

for it."

And there was another pause.

"He was doing so well, too," she said.

"He would have been a prefect after the summer. He would have been

captain of his house. We should have been so proud of him."

"And it's all over now."

They did not discuss the actual trouble. He knew that on the next day

he would have to go over the whole thing with Roland, and he wanted

to be able to think it out in quiet. They were practical people, who

had spent the last fifteen years discussing the practical affairs of

ways and means. They had come nearest to each other when they had sat

before their account-books in the evening, balancing one column with

another, and at the end of it looking each other in the face, agreeing

that they would have to "cut down this expense," and that they could

"save a little there." The love of the senses had died out quickly

between them, but its place had been taken by a deep affection, by the

steady accumulation of small incidents of loyalty and unselfishness, of

difficulties faced and fought together. They had never ventured upon

first principles. They had fixed their attention upon the immediate

necessities of the moment.

And now, although Roland's moral welfare was a deep responsibility to

them, they spoke only of his career and of how they must shape it to fit

the new requirements. Mr Whately thought that he might be able to find a

post for him in the bank. But his wife was very much against it.

"Oh, no, dear, that would be terrible. Roland could never stand it; he's

such an open-air person. I can't bear to think of him cooped up at a

desk all his days."

"That's what my life's been."

"I know; but, Roland. Surely we can find something better for him than

that."

"I'll try. I don't know. Things like the Civil Service are impossible

for him now, and the Army's no use, and I've got no influence in the

City."

"But you must try, really, dear. It's awful to think of him committed to

a bank for the rest of his life just when he was doing so well."

"All right. I'll do my best."

A few minutes later he said that he was tired and would go to bed. At

the door he paused, walked back into the room and stood behind his wife.

He wanted to say something to show that he appreciated her sympathy,

that he was glad she was beside him in this disappointment, this hour

of trouble. But he did not know what to say. He stretched out a hand

timidly and touched her hair. She turned and looked up at him, and

without a word said put her arms slowly about his neck, drew his hand

down to her and kissed him. For a full minute he was pressed against

her. "Dear," he murmured, and though he mounted the stairs sadly, he

felt strengthened by that embrace of mutual disappointment.

He set off very early next morning, for he would have to go down to the

bank and make arrangements for his absence. He had hoped that Roland

would have written to them, but the post brought only a circular from a

turf accountant.

"Have you decided what you are going to say to him?" his wife asked.

"Not yet. I shall think it out in the train. I shall be able to say the

right thing when the time comes."

"You won't be hard to him. I expect he's very miserable."

It was a bad day for Mr Whately. During the long train journey through

fields and villages, vivid in the bright June sunlight, he wondered in

what spirit he should receive his son. Roland would be no doubt waiting

for him at the station. What would they say to each other? How would

they begin? He would have lunch, of course, at the Eversham Hotel, and

then, he supposed, he would have to see the headmaster. That would be

very difficult. He always felt shy in the headmaster's presence. The

headmaster was such an aristocrat; he was stamped with the hall-mark of

Eton and Balliol, while he himself was the manager of a bank in London.

He was always aware of his social inferiority in that book-lined study,

with the five austere reproductions of Greek sculpture. The interview

would be very difficult. But the headmaster would at least do most of

the talking; whereas with Roland.... Mr Whately shifted uneasily in

his corner seat. What on earth was he going to say? Something, surely,

about the moral significance of the act. Roland must realise that he

was guilty of really immoral conduct, and yet how was he to be made to

realise it? What arguments must be produced? Wherein lay the harm of

calf love? And looking back over his own life Mr Whately could not see

that there was any particular vice attached to it. It was absurd and

preposterous, but it was very pleasant. He remembered how he had once

fancied himself in love with his grandmother's housemaid. He used to get

up early in the morning so that he could sit with her while she laid the

grate, and he had knelt down beside her and joined his breath with hers

in a fierce attempt to kindle the timid flame. He had never kissed her,

but she had let him hold her hand, and the summer holidays had passed

in delicious reveries. He remembered also how, a little later, he had

fallen desperately in love with the girl at the tobacconist's, and he

could still recall the breathless excitement of that morning when he had

come into the shop and found it empty. For a second she had listened at

the door leading to the private part of the house and had then leant

forward over the counter: "Quick," she had whispered.

Mr Whately smiled at the recollection and then remembered suddenly for

what cause he was travelling down to Fernhurst. "I must say something

to him. What shall I say?" And for want of any better argument he began

to adapt a speech that he had heard spoken a few weeks earlier in a

melodrama at the Aldwich. The hero, a soldier, had come home from the

war to find his betrothed in the arms of another, and she had protested

that it was him alone she loved, and that she was playing with the

other; but the returned warrior had delivered himself of an oration

on the eternal sanctity of love. "Love cannot be divided like a worm

and continue to exist. It is not a game." There was something in that

argument, and Mr Whately decided to tell Roland that love came only once

in a man's life, and that he must reserve himself for that one occasion.

"If you make love to every girl you meet, you will spoil yourself for

the real love affair. It will be the removal of a shovelful of gravel

from a large pile. One shovelful appears to make no difference, but

in the end the pile of gravel disappears." That is what he would say

to Roland. And because the idea seemed suitable, he did not pause to

consider whether or not it was founded upon truth. He lay back in his

corner seat and began to arrange his ideas according to that line of

persuasion.

But all this fine flow of wit and logic was dispelled when the train

drew up at Fernhurst station and Mr Whately descended from the carriage

to find Roland waiting for him on the platform.

"Hullo! father," he said, and the two of them walked in silence out of

the station, and turned into the Eversham Rooms.

"I've booked a table at the hotel," said Roland.

"Good."

"I expect you're feeling a bit hungry after your journey, aren't you,

father?"

"Yes, I am a bit."

"Not a bad day for travelling, though?"

"No, it was very jolly. The country was beautiful all the way down. It's

such a relief to be able to get out of London for a bit."

"I expect it must be."

"It's quite a treat to be able to come here"; and so nervous was he that

he failed to appreciate the irony of his last statement.

By this time they had reached the hotel. Roland walked with a cheerful

confidence into the entrance, nodded to the porter, hung his straw hat

upon the rack, and suggested a wash.

Mr Whately looked at himself in the glass as he dried his hands. It

was a withered face that looked back at him; the face of a bank clerk

who had risen with some industry and much privation to a position of

authority; a face that was lined and marked and undistinguished; the

face of a man who had never asserted himself. Mr Whately turned from

his own reflection and looked at his son, so strong, and fresh and

eager; unmarked as yet by trouble and adversity. Who was he, a scrubby,

middle-aged little man, emptied of energy and faith, with his life

behind him--who was he to impose his will on anyone?

"Finished, father?"

He followed his son into the dining-room and picked up the menu; but

he did not know what to choose, and handed the card across to Roland.

Roland ordered the meal; the waiter rubbed his hands, and father and son

sat opposite each other, oppressed by a situation that was new to them.

Roland waited for his father to begin. During the last thirty-six hours

he had been interviewed by three different masters, all of whom had, in

their way, tried to impress upon him the enormity of his offence. He was

by now a little tired of the subject. He wanted to know what punishment

had been fixed for him. He had heard enough of the moral aspect of the

case. "These people treat me as though I were a fool," he had said to

Brewster. "To hear the way they talked one would imagine that I had

never thought about the damnable business at all. They seem to expect me

to fall down, like St Paul before Damascus, and exclaim: 'Now, all is

clear to me!' But, damn it all, I knew what I was doing. I'd thought it

all out. I'm not going to do the conversion stunt just because I've been

found out." He expected his father to go over the old ground--influence,

position, responsibility. He prepared himself to listen. But as his

father did not begin, and as the soup did not arrive, Roland felt it was

incumbent upon him to say something.

"A great game that against Yorkshire?" he said.

"What! Which game?"

"Don't you remember, about a fortnight ago, the Middlesex and Yorkshire

match? Middlesex had over two hundred to get and only three hours to get

them in. They're a fine side this year."

And within two minutes they were discussing cricket as they had

discussed it so often before. At first they talked to cover their

embarrassment, but soon they had become really interested in the

subject.

"And what chance do you think you have of getting in the XI.? Surely

they ought to give you a trial soon."

"Oh, I don't know, father; I'm not much class, and there are several

old colours. I ought to get my seconds all right, and next season...."

He stopped, realising suddenly that he did not as yet know whether there

would be any next season for him, and quickly changed the conversation,

telling his father of a splendid rag that the Lower Fourth had organised

for the last Saturday of the term.

Sooner or later the all-important question had to be tackled, but by

the time lunch had finished, son and father had established their old

intimacy of quiet conversation, and they were ready to face and, if

need be, to dismiss the violent intrusion of the trouble. They walked

up and down the hotel grounds, Mr Whately wondering at what exact point

he should dab in his carefully constructed argument. There was a pause,

into which his voice broke suddenly:

"You know, Roland, about this business...."

"Yes, father."

"Well, I mean, going out with a girl in the town. Do you think it's...."

He paused. After all, he did not know what to say.

"I know, father. I know." And looking at each other they realised that

it would be impossible for them to discuss it. Their relationship was at

stake. It had no technique to deal with the situation. And Roland asked,

as his mother had asked, "What's going to happen, father?"

For answer, Mr Whately put his hand into his pocket, took out the

headmaster's letter and gave it to Roland. Roland read it through and

then handed it back. "Not a bad fellow, the Chief," he said, and they

walked up and down the path in silence.

"It's a disappointment," said Roland.

"For all of us."

"I suppose so."

And after another pause: "What's going to happen to me at the end of the

term?"

"That's what I've got to decide. I suggested a bank, but your mother was

very much against it."

"Oh, not the bank, father!"

"Well, I'll do my best for you, but it'll be difficult. Oxford's out of

the question. You can see that, can't you? I should have to send you to

a crammer, and everyone would talk. It would be sure to leak out. And we

don't want anything like that to happen, because they would be sure to

think it was something worse than it really was. I'm afraid Oxford's got

to go. Your mother agreed with me about that."

"I'm sure you're right, father."

"But I don't know what else there is, Roland. I shall have to ask the

headmaster."

But the headmaster was not very helpful. He was kind and sympathetic.

He spoke of the moral significance of the situation and the eventual

service that this trouble might prove to have been. He wished Roland

the very best of luck. He didn't agree with Mr Whately about the

impossibility of Oxford, but he appreciated Mr Whately's point of view.

After all, Mr Whately knew his own son better than he did. Was there

anything more Mr Whately would wish to ask him? He would be always very

glad to give Mr Whately any advice or help that lay within him. He hoped

Mr Whately would have a pleasant journey back to town.

"Dorset's at its best in June," he said, as he escorted Mr Whately to

the door.

There was an hour to put in before the departure of the London train,

and Roland and his father walked down to the cricket field. They sat on

the grass in the shade of the trees that cluster round the pavilion, and

watched the lazy progress of the various games that were scattered round

the large high-walled ground. It was a pretty sight--the green fields,

the white flannels, the mild sunshine of early summer. It was bitter to

Mr Whately that he would never again see Fernhurst. For that was what

Roland's trouble meant to him. And the reflection saddened his last hour

with his son.

When Roland had left him at the station he walked up and down the

platform in the grip of a deep melancholy. On such an afternoon, five

years ago, he had seen Fernhurst for the first time. He had brought

Roland down to try for a scholarship and they had stayed for three days

together at the Eversham Hotel. Fernhurst had been full of promise for

them then. He had not been to a public school himself. When he was a boy

the public school system had indeed hardly begun to impose its autocracy

on the lower middle classes, and he had always felt himself at a

disadvantage because he had been educated at Burstock Grammar School. He

had been desperately anxious for Roland to make a success of Fernhurst.

He had looked forward to the day when his son would be an important

figure in the school, and when he himself would become important as

Whately's father. How proud he would feel when he would walk down to the

field in the company of a double first. He would come down to "commem"

and give a luncheon party at the Eversham Hotel, and the masters would

come and speak to him and congratulate him on his son's performance:

"A wonderful game of his last week against Tonwich." And during the

last eighteen months it had indeed seemed that these dreams were to be

realised. Roland had his colours at football, he was in the Sixth, a

certainty for his seconds at cricket: after the summer he would be a

prefect and captain of games in the house. And now it was all over. As

far as he was concerned, Fernhurst was finished. His life would be empty

now without the letter every Monday morning telling of Roland's place

in form, of his scores during the week, and all the latest news of a

vivid communal life. That was over. And as Mr Whately mounted the train,

closed the door and sat back against the carriage, he felt as though he

were undergoing an operation; a part of his being was being wrenched

from him.

Roland felt none of this despondency. After saying good-bye to his

father he walked gaily up the Eversham Road. The brown stone of the

Abbey tower was turning to gold in the late sunlight, a cool wind was

blowing, the sky was blue. What did this trouble matter to him? Had he

not strength and faith and time in plenty to repair it? He had wearied

of school, he reminded himself. He had felt caged this last year; he had

wanted freedom; he had outgrown the narrow discipline of the field and

classroom. Next term he would be a man and not a schoolboy. He flung

back his shoulders as though he were ridding them of a burden.

There was still three-quarters of an hour to put in before lock-up, and

he walked up past the big school towards the hill. He thought he would

like to tell Brewster what had happened. He found him in his study, and

with him an old boy, Gerald Marston, who had been playing against the

school that afternoon.

"Hullo!" he said. "So here's the criminal. I've just been hearing all

about you. Come along and sit down."

Roland was flattered at Marston's interest in his escapade. He had

hardly known him at all when he had been at Fernhurst. Marston had been

in another house, was two years his senior, and, in addition, a double

first. Probably it was the first time they had even spoken to each

other.

"Oh, yes, we've been having an exciting time," laughed Roland.

"And what's going to be the end of it?"

"Well, as far as I can gather, the school will meet without me next

September."

"The sack?"

"Well, hardly that; the embroidered bag."

They talked and laughed. Marston was very jolly; he gave himself no

airs, and Roland could hardly realise that three years ago he had been

frightened of him, that when Marston had passed him in the cloister he

had lowered his voice, and as often as not had stopped speaking till he

had gone by.

"And what's going to happen to you now?" asked Marston.

"That's just what I don't know. My pater talked about my going into a

bank."

"But you'd hate that, wouldn't you?"

"I'm not too keen on it."

"Lord, no! I should think not. And there's no real future in it. You

ought to go into the City. There's excitement there, and big business.

You don't want to waste your life like that."

It happens sometimes that we meet a person whom we seem to have known

all our life, and by the time the clock began to strike the quarter,

Roland felt that he and Marston were old friends.

"A good fellow that," said Marston, after he had gone, "and a bit of a

sport too, by all accounts. I must try and see more of him."

And in his study Roland had picked up a calendar and was counting the

days that lay between him and Freedom.

PART II

THE RIVAL FORCES