Madge sat by the window, swinging disconsolate legs and struggling, with
a nauseated heart, to master those Latin prepositions which govern the
ablative case. A more degraded army she had never encountered, and
though some misguided sage had committed them to rhyme, this device
merely added a flavour of hypocrisy to their obvious malevolence.
Moreover, the whole universe appeared to be so disgustingly cheerful
that the contrast was well nigh unbearable.
Beyond the open window the day was young and bright, and the honey bees
sang briskly over the lawn.
Even the gardener, most dismal of men, was humming: "A few more years
shall roll," a sure sign of unwonted buoyancy of spirit. Miss Gerald was
writing some letters for Lady Chantrey in another room, and Madge was
alone in the study.
Thus, every factor combined to make temptation almost irresistible.
And, naturally enough, it came, and in the guise of a well-known,
long-agreed-on whistle.
From the laurels it rose, low and clear, and Madge's heart jumped
quickly as she heard, for the whistle was Tommy's, and she could not
remember how long ago it was since she had heard it.
Then she remembered that it must not be answered--for was not Tommy in
disgrace--at any rate, as far as she was concerned?
And had they not quarrelled so deeply that repair was almost an
impossibility?
It was very presumptuous of him to think that she should answer it.
She would remain where she was, in icy stillness, mastering the
prepositions with an iron hand.
A pleasing sense of virtue stole into her being, mixed with visions of a
downcast, brown face somewhere in the shrubbery, and for five long
minutes silence reigned. Then the whistle rang out again, a little
louder, and surely it sounded almost penitent.
A picture of a broken-hearted Tommy, whistling in dry-eyed sorrow, rose
to her eyes.
It was true that his offences had been great, but then, was not
forgiveness divine?
Madge felt sure that this was so. Was it not written in fair characters
in her last copy-book?
She closed her book and stood by the glass doors.
It is but rarely that we rise to the divine. Yet here was an
opportunity, and down the steps she ran, light-footed, over the thin
strip of lawn and into the deep laurels.
And it was not Tommy after all, but only the pale boy who, with
commendable perspicacity, had borrowed Tommy's whistle.
For a moment Madge flushed angrily, for she did not greatly like the
pale boy, and this was a deception.
But the morning was sweet, and the pale boy was surely better than a
preposition.
"I say: let's go through the wood," he said. "I've hidden some
sandwiches in a tree up there and we'll have a picnic, and you can be
back in time for lunch."
"All right," said Madge, "come along."
And in the wood they met Tommy, with the light of resolve in his eye and
battle written in his face.
Madge was not quite sure whether she was glad or sorry to meet him, nor
could she tell, as they looked straight into one another's eyes, the
nature of Tommy's feelings on the subject.
He looked a little grave, and spoke as one who had rehearsed against a
probable encounter.
"I want to apologise to you for our meeting the other day," he said
stiffly.
Madge stared, and Tommy turned to the pale boy.
"And to you," he said.
The pale boy looked a little puzzled, but grinned.
"That's all right," he said. "I could see--"
"Excuse me, I haven't quite finished"--and the pale boy stopped, with
his mouth open.
"I think you had better go home, Madge."
"Why--Tommy?"
Tommy looked down.
"You had better--really," he repeated.
The pale boy interposed.
"She is out with me," he said.
"So I see--she had better go home."
"Why--who says so?"
"If she doesn't she will see you get a licking. P'raps--p'raps she
wouldn't like that."
Tommy still looked at the path.
"I--I'm not going to fight anyone to-day."
"You are--you're jolly well going to fight me, now."
The pale boy smiled, a little uncertainly.
"You--I shouldn't have thought you'd want a second dose," he said.
"Rather," said Tommy, cheerfully.
Madge looked from one to the other.
"Don't fight," she said. "Please--please don't fight--why should you?"
"You'd much better run home," said Tommy again.
"I shan't--I shall stay here."
Tommy sighed.
"All right," he said, taking off his coat. "Then, of course, you must,
you know."
"I tell you I'm not going to fight," repeated the pale boy.
"Rot," said Tommy.
Five minutes later Tommy contentedly resumed his coat, his face flushed
with victory.
The pale boy was leaning against a tree, with a handkerchief to his nose
and one eye awry, whimpering vindictive epithets at his opponent--but
Madge was nowhere to be seen.
Tommy looked up and down the leafy vistas a little disappointedly. Then,
"Never mind," he said, philosophically.
"By Jove, it's a jolly sweet thing is life--ripping, simply ripping.
Good bye, old chap. Sniff upwards and it'll soon stop. So long."
* * * * *
In a brake where the wood falls back a little from the inroad of the
common the poet paused, for the gleam of a straw hat against a dark
background caught his eye.
"Why surely--no--yes, it is--how singular--so it is," he murmured,
wiping his glasses.
He left the path and struck out over the springy turf into the shade of
the wood, keeping his eyes nevertheless upon the ground, and walking
guilelessly, as one who contemplates.
And by chance his meditations were broken, and before him, among some
tall foxgloves, stood Mollie Gerald.
The poet looked surprised.
"How--how quietly you must walk, Miss Gerald," he said.
She laughed.
"How deeply you must think," she said.
"It--it is good to wake from thought to--to this, you know," he
answered, with a bow.
Miss Gerald looked comprehensively into the wood.
"It is pretty, isn't it?" she said.
"I was not referring to the wood," said the poet, hardily.
Miss Gerald bent over a foxglove rising gracefully over the bracken:
"Aren't they lovely?" she asked, showing the poet a handful of the
purple flowers.
"You came out to gather flowers?"
"Why, no. I came to look for my pupil."
"Surely not again a truant?"
"I am afraid so."
"It is hard to believe."
"And I stopped in my search to gather some of these. After all, it isn't
much good looking for a child in a wood, is it?"
"Quite useless, I should think."
"If they want to be found they'll come home, and if they don't, they
know the woods far better than we, and they'll hide."
"They always come back at meal-times--at least, Tommy does."
"I think meal-times are among the happiest hours of an average
childhood."
"Before the higher faculties have gained their powers of
appreciation--it depends on the child."
"Madge is not an imaginative child."
"Nor Tommy, I think, and yet I don't know. It is hard to appraise the
impressions that children receive and cannot record."
"And the experiment--how does it progress?"
"Alas, it is an experiment no longer; it is a very real responsibility,
and I am inadequate. Individually, I fancy we are all inadequate, and,
collectively, we do not seem quite to have found the way."
Miss Gerald nodded emphatically.
"Good," she said.
"Eh?"
"To feel inadequate is the beginning of wisdom; is it not so? There, I
have gathered my bunch."
"May I beg one foxglove for my coat?"
She laughed.
"There are plenty all round you. Why, you are standing in the middle of
a plant at this moment."
The poet stooped a little disconsolately, and plucked a stalk, and when
he looked up Miss Gerald was already threading her way through the
slender trunks.
"Good-bye," she cried, gaily, over her shoulder, and the poet raised his
hat.
As he sauntered back to the path the doctor rode by on his pony.
"Hullo," he said; "been picking flowers?"
The poet looked up.
"A pretty flower, the foxglove," he murmured.
"Digitalis purpurea--a drug, too, is it not?"
The doctor nodded.
"It has an action on the heart," he said. "Steadies and slows it, you
know."
But the poet shook his head.
"I fancy you are mistaken," he observed.