Speed was not a particularly good organist, and it was only reluctantly

that he undertook Raggs' duty for him. For one thing, he was always

slightly nervous of doing things in public. And for another thing, he

would have to practice a great deal in order to prepare himself for the

occasion, and he had neither the time nor the inclination for hours of

practice. However, when the Head said: "I know I can--um, yes--rely upon

you, Mr. Speed," Speed knew that there was no way out of it. Besides, he

was feeling his way in the school with marvellous ease and accuracy, and

each new duty undertaken by special request increased and improved his

prestige.

After a few days' trial he found it was rather pleasant to climb the

ladder to the organ-loft amid the rich cool dusk of the chapel, switch

on the buzzing motor that operated the electric power, and play, not

only Chopin's Funeral March but anything else he liked. Often he would

merely improvise, beginning with a simple theme announced on single

notes, and broadening and loudening into climax. Always as he played he

could see the shafts of sunlight falling amidst the dusty pews, the

many-coloured glitter of the stained-glass in the oriel window, and in

an opaque haze in the distance the white cavern of the chapel entrance

beyond which all was light and sunshine. The whole effect, serene and

tranquillising, hardly stirred him to any distinctly religious emotion,

but it set up in him acutely that emotional sensitiveness to things

secret and unseen, that insurgent consciousness, clear as the sky, yet

impossible to translate into words, of deep wells of meaning beneath all

the froth and commotion of his five passionate senses.

There was a mirror just above the level of his eyes as he sat at the

keyboard, a mirror by means of which he could keep a casual eye on the

pulpit and choir-stalls and the one or two front pews. And one golden

afternoon as he was playing the _adagio_ movement out of Beethoven's

"Sonata Pathétique," a stray side-glance into the mirror showed him

that he had an audience--of one. She was sitting at the end of the front

pew of all, nearest the lectern; she was listening, very simply and

unspectacularly. Speed's first impulse was to stop; his second to switch

off from the "Sonata Pathétique" into something more blatantly

dramatic. He had, with the first kindling warmth of the sensation of

seeing her, a passionate longing to touch somehow her emotions, or, if

he could not do that, to stir her sentimentality, at any rate; he would

have played the most saccharine picture-palace trash, with _vox humana_

and _tremolo_ stops combined, if he had thought that by doing so he

could fill her eyes. Third thoughts, however, better than either the

second or first, told him that he had better finish the _adagio_

movement of the Sonata before betraying the fact that he knew she was

present. He did so accordingly, playing rather well; then, when the last

echoes had died away, he swung his legs over the bench and addressed

her. He said, in a conversational tone that sounded rather incongruous

in its surroundings: "Good afternoon, Miss Ervine!"

She looked up, evidently startled, and answered, with a half-smile: "Oh,

good afternoon, Mr. Speed."

He went on: "I hope I haven't bored you. Is there anything in particular

you'd like me to play to you?"

She walked out of the pew and along the tiled arena between the

choir-stalls to a point where she stood gazing directly up at him. The

organ was on the south side of the choir, perched rather precipitously

in an overhead chamber that looked down on to the rest of the chapel

rather as a bay-window looks on to a street. To Speed, as he saw her,

the situation seemed somewhat like the balcony scene with the positions

of Romeo and Juliet reversed. And never, he thought, had she looked so

beautiful as she did then, with her head poised at an upward angle as if

in mute and delicate appeal, and her arms limply at her side, motionless

and inconspicuous, as though all the meaning and significance of her

were flung upwards into the single soaring glance of her eyes. A shaft

of sunlight, filtered through the crimson of an apostle's robe, struck

her hair and kindled it at once into flame; her eyes, blue and laughing,

gazed heavenwards with a look of matchless tranquillity. She might have

been a saint, come to life out of the sun-drenched stained-glass.

She cried out, like a happy child: "Oh, I _have_ enjoyed it, Mr. Speed!

_All_ of it. I _do_ wish I could come up there and watch you play!"

With startled eagerness he answered: "Come up then--I should be

delighted! Go round into the vestry and I'll help you up the ladder."

Instinct warned him that she was only a child, interested in the merely

mechanical tricks of how things were done; that she wanted to see the

working of the stops and pedals more than to hear the music; that this

impulse of hers did not betoken any particular friendliness for him or

admiration for his playing. Yet some secondary instinct, some quick

passionate enthusiasm, swept away the calculating logic of that, and

made him a prey to the wildest and raptest of anticipations.

In the vestry she blushed violently as he met her; she seemed more a

child than ever before. And she scampered up the steep ladder into the

loft with an agility that bewildered him.

He never dreamt that she could so put away all fear and embarrassment of

his presence; as she clambered up on to the end of the bench beside him

(for there was no seating-room anywhere else) he wondered if this were

merely a mood of hers, or if some real and deep change had come over her

since their last meeting. She was so delicately lovely; to see her

there, with her eyes upon him, so few inches from his, gave him a

curious electrical pricking of the skin. Sometimes, he noticed, her eyes

watched his hands steadily; sometimes, with a look half-bold,

half-timid, they travelled for an instant to his face. He even wondered,

with an egotism that made him smile inwardly, if she were thinking him

good-looking.

"Now," he said, beginning to pull out the necessary stops, "what shall

we have?--'The Moonlight Sonata,' eh?"

"Yes," she assented, eagerly. "I've heard Clare talk about it."

He played it to her; then he played her a medley of Bach, Dvorak,

Mozart, Mendelssohn and Lemare. He was surprised and pleased to discover

that, on the whole, she preferred the good music to the not so good,

although, of course, her musical taste was completely unsophisticated.

Mainly, too, it was the music that kept her attention, though she had a

considerable childish interest in his manual dexterity and in the

mechanical arrangement of the stops and couplings. She said once, in a

pause between two pieces: "Aren't they strange hands?" He replied,

laughing away his embarrassment: "I don't know. Are they?"

After he had played, rather badly but with great verve, the _Ruy Blas_

Overture of Mendelssohn, she exclaimed: "Oh, I wish I could play like

that!"

He said: "But you do play the piano, don't you? And I prefer the piano

to the organ: it's less mechanical."

She clapped her hands together in a captivatingly childish gesture of

excitement and said: "Oh yes, the piano's lovely, isn't it? But I can't

play well--oh, I wish I could!"

"You could if you practised hard enough," he answered, with prosaic

encouragement. "I can hear you sometimes, you know, when I'm in my room

at nights and the window's open. I think you could become quite a good

player."

She leaned her elbow on the keys and started in momentary fright at the

resulting jangle of sound. "I--I get so nervous," she said. "I don't

know why. I could never play except to myself--and Clare." She added,

slowly, and as if the revelation had only barely come to her: "Do you

know--it's strange, isn't it--I think--perhaps--I think I might be able

to play in front of you--_now_--without being nervous!"

He laughed boisterously and swung himself off the bench. "Very well,

then, that's fine news! You shall try. You shall play some of the Chopin

waltzes to me. Not very suitable for an organ, but that doesn't matter.

Sit further on this bench and play on the lower keyboard. Never mind

about the pedals. And I'll manage the stops for you."

She wriggled excitedly into the position he had indicated and, laughing

softly, began one of the best-known of the waltzes. The experiment was

not entirely successful, for even an accomplished pianist does not play

well on an organ for the first time, nor do the Chopin waltzes lend

themselves aptly to such an instrument. But one thing, and to Speed the

main thing of all, was quite obvious: she was, as she had said she would

be, entirely free from nervousness of him. After ploughing rather

disastrously through a dozen or so bars she stopped, turned to him with

flushed cheeks and happy eyes, and exclaimed: "There! That's enough!

It's not easy to play, is it?"

He said, smiling down at her: "No, it's rather hard, especially at

first.... But you weren't nervous then, were you?"

"Not a bit," she answered, proudly. She added, with a note of warning:

"Don't be surprised if I am when you come in to our house to dinner. I'm

always nervous when father's there."

Almost he added: "So am I." But the way in which she had mentioned

future invitations to dinner at the Head's house gave him the instant

feeling that henceforward the atmosphere on such occasions would he

subtly different from ever before. The Head's drawing-room, with the

baby grand piano and the curio-cabinets and the faded cabbage-like

design of the carpet, would never look quite the same again; the Head's

drawing-room would look, perhaps, less like a cross between a lady's

boudoir and the board-room of a City company; even the Head's study

might take on a kindlier, less sinister hue.

He said, still with his eyes smiling upon her: "Who teaches you the

piano?"

"A Miss Peacham used to. I don't have a teacher now."

"I don't know," he said, beginning to flush with the consciousness of

his great daring, "if you would care to let me help you at all. I should

be delighted to do so, you know, at any time. Since--" he laughed a

little--"since you're no longer a scrap nervous of me, you might find me

useful in giving you a few odd hints."

He waited, anxious and perturbed, for her reply. After a sufficient

pause she answered slowly, as if thinking it out: "That would

be--rather--fine--I think."

Most inopportunely then the bell began to ring for afternoon-school,

and, most inopportunely also, he was due to take five _beta_ in drawing.

They clambered down the ladder, chatting vivaciously the while, and at

the vestry door, when they separated she said eagerly: "Oh, I've had

_such_ a good time, Mr. Speed. Haven't you?"

"Rather!" he answered, with boyish emphasis and enthusiasm.

That afternoon hour, spent bewilderingly with five _beta_ in the

art-room that was full of plaster casts and free-hand models and framed

reproductions of famous pictures, went for Speed like the passage of a

moment. His heart and brain were tingling with excitement, teeming with

suppressed consciousness. The green of the lawns as he looked out of the

window seemed greener than ever before; the particles of dust that shone

in the shafts of sunlight seemed to him each one mightily distinct; the

glint of a boy's golden hair in the sunshine was, to his eyes, like a

patch of flame that momentarily put all else in a haze. It seemed to

him, passionately and tremendously, that for the first time in his life

he was alive; more than that even: it seemed to him that for the first

time since the beginning of all things life had come shatteringly into

the world.

III

"I should think, Mr. Speed, you have found out by now whether Helen

likes you or not."

Those words of Clare Harrington echoed in his ears as he walked amidst

the dappled sunlight on the Millstead road. They echoed first of all in

the quiet tones in which Clare had uttered them; next, they took on a

subtle, meaningful note of their own; finally, they submerged all else

in a crescendo of passionate triumph. Speed was almost stupefied by

their gradually self-revealing significance. He strode on faster, dug

his heels more decisively into the dust of the roadside; he laughed

aloud; his walking-stick pirouetted in a joyful circle. To any passer-by

he must have seemed a little mad. And all because of a few words that

Clare Harrington, riding along the lane on her bicycle, had stopped to

say to him.

June, lovely and serene, had spread itself out over Millstead like a

veil of purest magic; every day the sun climbed high and shone fiercely;

every night the world slept under the starshine; all the passage of

nights and days was one moving pageant of wonderment. And Speed was

happy, gloriously, overwhelmingly happy. Never in all his life before

had he been so happy; never had he tasted, even to an infinitesimal

extent, the kind of happiness that bathed and drenched him now.

Rapturously lovely were those long June days, days that turned Millstead

into a flaming paradise of sights and sounds. In the mornings, he rose

early, took a cold plunge in the swimming-bath, and breakfasted with the

school amidst the cool morning freshness that, by its very quality of

chill, seemed to suggest bewitchingly the warmth that was to come.

Chapel followed breakfast, and after that, until noon, his time was

spent in the Art and Music Rooms and the various form-rooms in which he

contrived to satisfy parental avidity for that species of geography

known as commercial. From noon until midday dinner he either marked

books in his room or went shopping into the town. During that happy hour

the cricket was beginning, and the dining-hall at one o'clock was gay

with cream flannels and variously chromatic blazers. Speed loved the

midday meal with the school; he liked to chat with his neighbours at

table, to listen to the catalogue of triumphs, anxieties, and

anticipations that never failed to unfold itself to the sympathetic

hearer. Afterwards he was free to spend the afternoon as he liked. He

might cycle dreamily along the sleepy lanes and find himself at tea-time

in some wrinkled little sun-scorched inn, with nothing to do but dream

his own glorious dreams and play with the innkeeper's languid dog and

read local newspapers a fortnight old. Or he might stay the whole

afternoon at Millstead, lazily watching the cricket from a deck-chair on

the pavilion verandah and sipping the tuck-shop's iced lemonade. Less

often he would play cricket himself, never scoring more than ten or a

dozen runs, but fielding with a dogged energy which occasionally only

just missed deserving the epithet brilliant. And sometimes, in the

excess of his enthusiasm, he would take selected parties of the boys to

Pangbourne Cathedral, some eighteen miles distant, and show them the

immense nave and the Lady Chapel with the decapitated statues and the

marvellous stained-glass of the Octagon.

Then dinner, conversational and sometimes boisterous, in the Masters'

Common-Room, and afterwards, unless it were his evening for taking

preparation, an hour at least of silence before the corridors and

dormitories became noisy. During this hour he would often sit by the

open window in his room and hear the rooks cawing in the high trees and

the _clankety-clank_ of the roller on the cricket-pitch and all the

mingled sounds and commotions that seemed to him to make the silence of

the summer evenings more magical than ever. Often, too, he would hear

the sound of the Head's piano, a faint half-pathetic tinkle from below.

Half-past eight let loose the glorious pandemonium; he could hear from

his room the chiming of the school-bell, and then, softly at first, but

soon rising to a tempestuous flood, the tide of invasion sweeping down

the steps of the Big Hall and pouring into the houses. Always it

thrilled him by its mere strength and volume of sound; thrilled him with

pride and passion to think that he belonged to this heart that throbbed

with such onrushing zest and vitality. Soon the first adventurous

lappings of the tide reached the corridor outside his room; he loved the

noise and commotion of it; he loved the shouting and singing and yelling

and the boisterous laughter; he loved the faint murmur of conflicting

gramophones and the smells of coffee and cocoa that rose up from the

downstairs studies; he loved the sound of old Hartopp's voice as he

stood at the foot of the stairs at ten o'clock and shouted, in a key

that sent up a melodious echoing through all the passages and landings:

"Time, gentlemen, time!"--And when the lights in the dormitories had all

been put out, and Millstead at last was silent under the stars, he loved

above all things the strange magic of his own senses, that revealed him

a Millstead that nobody else had ever seen, a Millstead rapt and

ethereal, one with the haze of night and the summer starshine.

He told himself, in the moments when he reacted from the abandonment of

his soul to dreaming, that he was sentimental, that he loved too

readily, that beauty stirred him more than it ought, that life was too

vividly emotional, too mighty a conqueror of his senses. But then, in

the calm midst of reasoning, that same wild, tremulous consciousness of

wonder and romance would envelop him afresh like a strong flood; it was

a fierce, passionate ache in his bones, only to be forgotten for unreal,

unliving instants. And one moment, when he sat by the window hearing the

far-off murmur of Chopin on the Head's piano, he knew most simply and

perfectly why it was that all this was so. It was because he was very

deeply and passionately in love. In his dreams, his wild and bewitching

dreams, she was a fairy-child, ethereal and half unreal, the rapt

half-embodied spirit of Millstead itself, luring him by her sweet and

fragrant vitality. He saw in the sunlight always the golden glint of her

hair; in music no more than subtle and exquisite reminders of her; in

all the world of sights and sounds and feelings a deep transfiguring

passion that was his own for her.

And in the flesh he met her often in the school grounds, where she might

say: "Oh, Mr. Speed, I'm so glad I've met you! I want you to come in and

hear me play something." They would stroll together over the lawns into

the Head's house and settle themselves in the stuffy-smelling

drawing-room. Doctor and Mrs. Ervine were frequently out in the

afternoons, and Potter, it was believed, dozed in the butler's pantry.

Speed would play the piano to the girl and then she to him, and when

they were both tired of playing they talked awhile. Everything of her

seemed to him most perfect and delicious. Once he asked her tactfully

about reading novelettes, and she said: "I read them sometimes because

there's nothing in father's library that I care for. It's nearly all

sermons and Latin grammars." Immediately it appeared to him that all was

satisfactory and entrancingly explained; a vague unrestfulness in him

was made suddenly tranquil; her habit of reading novelettes made her

more dear and lovable than ever. He said: "I wonder if you'd like me to

lend you some books?--_Interesting_ books, I promise you."--She

answered, with her child-like enthusiasm: "Oh, I'd love that, Mr.

Speed!"

He lent her Hans Andersen's fairy tales.

Once in chapel, as he declaimed the final verse of the eighty-eighth

Psalm, he looked for a fraction of a second at the Head's pew and saw

that she was watching him. "Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me,

and mine acquaintance into darkness."--He saw a blush kindle her cheeks

like flame.

One week-day morning he met the Head in the middle of the quadrangle.

The Head beamed on him cordially and said: "I understand, Mr. Speed,

that you--um--give my daughter--occasional--um, yes--assistance with her

music. Very kind of you, I'm sure--um, yes--extremely kind of you, Mr.

Speed."

He added, dreamily: "My daughter--still--um, yes--still a child in many

ways--makes few friends--um, yes--very few. Seems to have taken quite

an--um, yes--quite a _fancy_ to you, Mr. Speed."

And Speed answered, with an embarrassment that was ridiculously

schoolboyish: "Indeed, sir?--Indeed?"

IV

Speech Day at Millstead.

Speed sat shyly on his chair on the platform, wrapping his gown

round him nervously, and gazing, every now and then, at the

fashionably-dressed throng that crowded the Big Hall to its utmost

capacity. It was a day of ordeals, but his own chief ordeal was safely

past; the school-choir had grappled quite creditably with Stanford's _Te

Deum_ at the chapel service that morning. He was feeling very happy,

even amidst his nervousness. His eyes wandered to the end of the front

row of the auditorium, where Helen Ervine and Clare Harrington sat

together. They were gossiping and laughing.

The Chairman, Sir Henry Briggs, rose to introduce the principal guest,

Lord Portway. Lord Portway, so said Sir Henry Briggs, needed no

introduction. Lord Portway....

Speed listened dreamfully.

Then Lord Portway. Lord Portway confessed himself to be a poor speaker,

but hoped that it would not always be those with a glib tongue that got

on in the world. (Laughter and cheers.) When he (Lord Portway) was at

school he was ashamed to say that he never received a single prize.

(More laughter.) He hoped that all the boys of Millstead, whether they

had prizes or not, would remember that it wasn't always the

prize-winners at school who did best in the battle of life. (Hear,

hear.) He would just like to give them all a word or two of advice. Be

thorough. (Cheers.) Brilliance wasn't everything. If he were engaging an

employee and he had the choice of two men, one brilliant and the other

thorough, he should choose the thorough one. He was certain that some,

at least, of those Millstead boys who had won no prizes would do great

things and become famous in after-life....

Speed watched Doctor Ervine's face; saw the firm mouth expand, from time

to time, into a mirthless automatic smile whenever the audience was

stirred to laughter. And Mrs. Ervine fidgeted with her dress and glanced

about her with nervously sparkling eyes.

Finally, said Lord Portway, he would like to ask the Headmaster to grant

the boys of Millstead a whole holiday.... (Cheers, deafening and

continuous.)

It was, of course, the universal custom that Speech Day should be

followed by a week-end's holiday in which those boys who lived within

easy reach might go home. Many boys had already made their arrangements

and chosen their trains, but, respecting the theory that the holiday

depended on Lord Portway's asking for it, they cheered as if he had

conferred an inestimable boon upon them.

The Head, raising his hand when the clamour had lasted a sufficient

time, announced: "My Lord, I have--um--great pleasure in granting your

request."

More deafening cheers. The masters round about Speed, witnesses of this

little farce for a number of successive years varying from one to

thirty, smiled and whispered together condescendingly.

Sir Henry Briggs, thick-voiced and ponderous. "I--I call upon the

Headmaster ..."

Doctor Ervine rose, cleared his throat, and began: "My Lord,--um--and

Ladies and Gentlemen--." A certain sage--he would leave it to his

sixth-form boys to give the gentleman's name--(Laughter)--had declared

that that nation was happy which had no history. It had often occurred

to him that the remark could be neatly and appositely adapted to a

public-school--happy was that public-school year about which, on Speech

Day, the Headmaster could find very little to say. (Laughter.) Certainly

it was true of this particular year. It had been a very happy one, a

very successful one, and really, there was not much else to say. One or

two things, however, he would like to mention especially. First, in the

world of Sport. He put Sport first merely because alphabetically it came

before Work. (Laughter.) Millstead had had a very successful football

and hockey season, and only that week at cricket they had defeated

Selhurst. (Cheers).... In the world of scholarship the year had also

been successful, no fewer than thirty-eight Millsteadians having passed

the Lower Certificate Examination of the Oxford and Cambridge Board.

(Cheers.) One of the sixth-form boys, A. V. Cobham, had obtained an

exhibition at Magdalen College, Cambridge. (Cheers.) H. O. Catterwall,

who left some years back, had been appointed Deputy Revenue Commissioner

for the district of--um--Bhungi-Bhoolu. (Cheers.) Two boys, R. Heming

and B. Shales, had obtained distinctions at London University.

(Cheers.).... Of the Masters, all he could say was that he could not

believe that any Headmaster in the country was supported by a staff more

loyal and efficient. (Cheers.) They had to welcome one addition,--he

might say, although he (the addition) had only been at Millstead a few

weeks--a very valued addition--to the school staff. That was Mr. Speed.

(Loud cheers). Mr. Speed was very young, and youth, as they all knew,

was very enthusiastic. (Cheers and laughter.) In fact, although Mr.

Speed had been at Millstead such a short time, he had already earned and

deserved the name of the School Enthusiast. (Laughter.) He had

had a very kind letter from Mr. Speed's father, Sir Charles

Speed--(pause)--regretting his inability, owing to a previously

contracted engagement, to be present at the Speech Day celebrations, and

he (the Head) was particularly sorry he could not come because it would

have done him good, he felt sure, to see how universally popular at

Millstead was his enthusiastic son. (Cheers and laughter.) He hoped

Millstead would have the benefit of Mr. Speed's gifts and personality

for many, many years to come. (Loud cheers.).... He must not conclude

without some reference to the sad blow that had struck the school only a

week or so before. He alluded to the lamented passing-away of Sir Huntly

Polk, for many years Chairman on the Governing Board....

Speed heard no more. He felt himself beginning to burn all over; he put

one hand to his cheek in a vague and instinctive gesture of

self-protection. Of course, behind his embarrassment he was pleased,

rapturously pleased; but at first his predominant emotion was surprise.

It had never occurred to him that the Head would mention him in a

speech, or that he would invite his father to the Speech Day ceremonies.

Then, as he heard the cheering of the boys at the mention of his name,

emotion swallowed his surprise and everything became a blur.

After the ceremony he met the two girls outside the Big Hall. Clare

said: "Poor man--you looked _so_ uncomfortable while everybody was

cheering you! But really, you know, it is nice to be praised, isn't it?"

And Helen, speaking softly so that no one else should hear, whispered:

"I daresay I can get free about nine o'clock to-night. We can go for a

walk, eh, Kenneth?--Nine o'clock by the pavilion steps, then."

Her voice, muffled and yet eager, trembled like the note of a bell on a

windy day.

Speed whispered, joyously: "Righto, Helen, I'll be there."

To such a pitch had their relationship developed as a result of

music-lessons and book-lendings and casual encounters. And now they were

living the most exquisite of all moments, when each could guess but

could not be quite certain of the other's love. Day had followed day,

each one more tremulously beautiful than the one before, each one more

exquisitely near to something whose beauty was too keen and blinding to

be studied; each day the light in their eyes had grown brighter,

fiercer, more bursting from within. But now, as they met and separated

in the laughing crowd that squirmed its way down the steps of the Big

Hall, some subtle telepathy between their minds told them that never

again would they shrink from the vivid joy of confession. To-night ...

thought Speed, as he went up to his room and slipped off his cap and

gown. And the same wild ecstasy of anticipation was in Helen's mind as

she walked with Clare across the lawns to the Head's house.

V

That night the moon was full and high; the leaden roofs and cupola of

the pavilion gleamed like silver plaques; and all the cricket-pitch was

covered with a thin, white, motionless tide into which the oblong

shadows pushed out like the black piers of a jetty. Millstead was silent

and serene. A third of its inhabitants had departed by the evening

trains; perhaps another third was with its parents in the lounges of the

town hotels; the remainder, reacting from the day's excitement and

sobered by the unaccustomed sparseness of the population, was more

silent than usual. Lights gleamed in the dormitories and basement

bathrooms, but there was an absence of stir, rather than of sound, which

gave to the whole place a curious aspect of forlornness; no sudden

boisterous shout sent its message spinning along the corridor and out of

some wide-open window into the night. It was a world of dreams and

spells, and to Speed, standing in the jet-black shadow of the pavilion

steps, it seemed that sight and sound were almost one; that he could

hear moonlight humming everywhere around him, and see the tremor in the

sky as the nine o'clock chiming fell from the chapel belfry.

She came to him like a shy wraith, resolving out of the haze of

moonbeams. The bright gold of her hair, drenched now in silver, had

turned to a glossy blackness that had in it some subtle and unearthly

colour that could be touched rather than seen; Speed felt his fingers

tingle as at a new sensation. Something richly and manifestly different

was abroad in the world, something different from what had ever been

there before; the grey shining pools of her eyes were like pictures in a

trance. He knew, strangely and intimately, that he loved her and that

she loved him, that there was exquisite sweetness in everything that

could happen to them, that all the world was wonderfully in time and

tune with their own blind-fold yet miraculously self-guiding

inclinations. Tears, lovely in moonlight, shone in her clear eyes, eyes

that were deep and dark under the night sky; he put his arm around her

and touched his cheek with hers. It was as if his body began to dissolve

at that first ineffable thrill; he trembled vitally; then, after a pause

of magic, kissed her dark, wet, offering lips, not with passion, but

with all the wistful gentleness of the night itself, as if he were

afraid that she might fly away, mothlike, from a rough touch. The

moonlight, sight and sound fused into one, throbbed in his eyes and

ears; his heart, beating quickly, hammered, it seemed, against the

stars. It was the most exquisite and tremulous revelation of heaven,

heaven that knew neither bound nor end.

"Wonderful child!" he whispered.

She replied, in a voice deep as the diapason note of an organ: "_Am_ I

wonderful?"

"_You_ are," she said, after a pause.

He nodded.

"_I_?" He smiled, caressing her hair. "I feel--I feel, Helen, as if

nothing in the world had ever happened to me until this night! Nothing

at all!"

"_I_ do," she whispered.

"As if--as if nothing in the world had ever happened to anybody until

now."

"You love me?"

"Yes, Kenneth."

"I love you."

"I'm--I'm--I'm glad."

They stood together for a long while with the moonlight on their faces,

watching and thinking and dreaming and wondering. The ten o'clock chimes

littered the air with their mingled pathos and cheer; the hour had been

like the dissolving moment of a dream.

As they entered the shadows of the high trees and came in sight of

Milner's, a tall cliff of winking yellow windows, they stopped and

kissed again, a shade more passionately than before.

"But oh," she exclaimed as they separated in the shadow of the Head's

gateway, "I _wish_ I was clever! I wish I was as clever as you! I'm not,

Kenneth, and you mustn't think I am. I'm--I'm _stupid_, compared with

you. And yet"--her voice kindled with a strange thrill--"and yet you say

I'm wonderful! _Wonderful_!--_Am_ I?--Really wonderful?"

"Wonderful," he whispered, fervently.

She cried, softly but with passion: "Oh, I'm glad--glad--I'm glad.

It's--it's glorious to--to think that you think that. But oh, Kenneth,

Kenneth, don't find out that I'm not." She added, very softly and almost

as if reassuring herself of something: "I--I love you very--_very_

much."

They could not tear themselves away from each other. The lights in the

dormitories winked out one by one; the quarter-chimes sprinkled their

music on the moon-white lawns; yet still, fearful to separate, they

whispered amidst the shadows. Millstead, towering on all sides of them

vast and radiant, bathed them in her own deep passionless tranquillity;

Millstead, a little forlorn that night, yet ever a mighty parent,

serenely watchful over her children.

VI

He decided that night that he would write a story about Millstead; that

he would do for Millstead what other people had already done for Eton

and Harrow and Rugby. He would put down all the magic that he had seen

and felt; he would transfer to paper the subtle enchantment of the

golden summer days, the moonlit nights, the steamy warmth of

the bathrooms, the shouting in the dormitories, the buzz of

movement and conversation in the dining hall, the cool gloom of the

chapel--everything that came effortlessly into his mind whenever he

thought of Millstead. All the beauty and emotion and rapture that he had

seen and felt must not, he determined, be locked inside him: it

clamoured to be set free, to flow strongly yet purposefully in the

channel of some mighty undertaking.

Clanwell asked him in to coffee that night: from half-past ten till

half-past eleven Speed lounged in one of Clanwell's easy chairs and

found a great difficulty in paying attention to what Clanwell was

saying. In the end his thoughts burst, as it were, their barriers: he

said: "D'you know, Clanwell, I've had an idea--some time, you know--to

write a tale about Millstead?"

"Really?--A school story, you mean?"

"Yes. You see--I feel--oh, well--there's a sort of atmosphere about the

place, if you know what I mean--a rather wonderful sort of atmosphere.

If somebody could only manage to express it in words they'd make rather

a fine story, I should think."

Clanwell said: "Yes, I've known that atmosphere for a dozen years, but

I'm quite certain I could never write about it. And you think you

could?"

"I thought of trying, anyway, Millstead in summer-time--" Speed's voice

quivered with rapture--"It's simply divine!"

"But you haven't seen it in winter-time yet. You can't write a story

about one summer-term."

"No." Speed pondered, and said doubtfully: "No, I suppose not. It does

sound rather arrogant, doesn't it, for me to talk of writing a

school-story about Millstead after a few weeks at it, while you, after a

dozen years, don't feel equal to the task?"

"When one is young and in love," declared Clanwell slowly, "one feels

arrogant."

Speed laughed uproariously: it was as if Clanwell's remark had let loose

a cataract of emotion in him. "You despise my condition a little, don't

you?" he said.

"No," answered Clanwell, "I don't despise it at all: I just recognize

it, that's all." He paused and began again: "I wonder if you'll let me

speak to you a trifle seriously, Speed, without getting offended with

me?"

"Of course I will. Fire away!"

Clanwell knocked out his pipe on the bars of the empty firegrate and

said, rather curtly: "Don't see too much of Miss Ervine."

"What!"

Speed jerked forward in his chair and a sharp light entered his eyes.

Clanwell continued, unmoved: "You said you weren't going to get

offended, Speed. I hope you'll keep your promise. Understand, I've

nothing to say against Miss Ervine at all, and if I had, I shouldn't

take on the job of telling you about it. All that concerns me is just

the matter of--of expediency, if you like to put it that way."

"What do you mean?"

"Just this. It doesn't do you any good in the school to be seen

continually meeting her. The Common-Room, which liked you immensely at

first when you came, is just beginning to be slightly amused at you. And

the boys have noticed it, you may be sure. Probably you'll find yourself

beginning to be ragged about it soon."

"But I'm not frightened of being ragged."

"Oh no, I daresay not.... Still, I've said all I wanted to say. Don't

forget, Speed, that you're pledged not to take offence."

"Oh, I'll not do that."

Just before Speed left Clanwell said: "I wouldn't start that tale of

Millstead life just yet if I were you, Speed. Better wait till you're

out of love, at any rate. After all, it's rather a highly coloured

Millstead that you see at present, isn't it?"

"You think I'm sentimental, eh?"

"My dear fellow, I think you're by far the most sentimental chap I've

ever come across!--Don't be hurt: it's not a crime. But it's just a bit

of a danger, especially in writing a school-story. That atmosphere you

talk about certainly _does_ exist, and if I had the gift of

self-expression I might try to write about it. I can see it clearly

enough, even though I'm not a scrap in love, and even on the dreariest

of days in the winter term. My advice to you is to wait and see if you

can do the same.... Good night, Speed!"

"Good night," Speed called out, laughing.

Down Clanwell's corridor and up the stone flight of stairs and along his

own corridor to the door of his own room his heart was thumping

violently, for he knew that as soon as he was alone he would be drenched

in the wild, tumultuous rapture of his own thoughts. Clanwell's advice,

hazily remembered, faded before the splendour of that coming onrush; the

whole interview with Clanwell vanished as if it had never happened, as

if there had been a sort of cataleptic vacuum intervening between that

scene by the Head's gateway and the climb upstairs to his room.

When he got to bed he could hardly sleep for joy.

CHAPTER FOUR

I

The first thing that Clare Harrington said to him when they met a few

days later in Millstead High Street was: "Oh, congratulations, Mr.

Speed!"

"Congratulations?" he echoed. "What for?"

She replied quietly: "Helen has told me."

He began to blush, and to hold his breath in an endeavour to prevent his

cheeks from reddening to an extent that, so he felt, would be observed

by passers-by. "Oh!" he gasped, with a half-embarrassed smile. Then,

after a pause, he queried: "What has she told you?"

And Clare answered: "That you are going to marry her."

"Ah!" he exclaimed involuntarily, and he saw her eyes focussed on him

strangely. A slow sensation of warmth began to envelop him; joy rose

round him like a tide as he realised all the pivotal significance of

what Clare had said. He was going to marry Helen!--Strange that, even

amidst his most secret raptures, he had hardly dared to think of that!

He had dreamed exquisite and fragile dreams of her, dreams in which she

was too fairy-like and ethereal for marriage; doubtless, after some

while, his ambitions would have crystallised normally, but up to the

present they had no anchorage on earth at all. And to think that she had

travelled in mind and intention more swiftly and further than he, to

think that she had dared to deduce the final and ultimate reality, gave

him, along with a surging overmastering joy, just a faint tinge of

disappointment as well. But the joy, deepening and spreading, soon

blotted out everything else: he sought Clare's hand and gripped it

triumphantly. Tears were in his eyes and emotion clutching at his voice

as he said: "I'm--I'm glad--she's told you. It's--it's fine, isn't

it?--Don't you think we shall be--happy?"

"You ought to be," said Clare.

He struggled with the press of feeling for a moment and then said: "Oh,

let's go into Mason's and have a cup of coffee or something. I want to

talk to you."

So they sat for a quarter of an hour at a little green-tiled table in

Mason's highly respectable café. The room was over the shop, and

besides affording from the window a panoramic view of the High Street,

contained a small fire-grate, a framed picture of the interior of

Mason's Hygienic Bakery, and a large ginger-and-white cat with kittens.

Altogether it was a most secluded and comfortable rendezvous.

All the while that they conversed he was but slowly sizing up the

situation and experiencing little alternating wafts of disappointment

and exhilaration. Disappointment, perhaps, that he had not been left the

bewitching task of bringing Helen's mind, along with his own, out of the

clouds and mists of dreams; exhilaration also, because her mind,

womanishly direct, had evidently not needed such guidance.

He talked rhapsodically to Clare; lashed himself, as it were, into a

state of emotional fervour. He seemed eager to anticipate everything

that anybody could possibly say to Helen's disadvantage, and to explain

away the whole; it was as if he were championing Helen against subtle

and inevitable disparagements. Once or twice he seemed to realise this,

and to realise that he was defending where there was no attack, and then

he stopped, looked confused, and waited for Clare to say something.

Clare, as a matter of fact, said very little, and when she spoke Speed

took hardly any notice, except, perhaps, to allow her words to suggest

to him some fresh rhapsodical outbreak. He said, in a sudden outpouring:

"Of course I know she's only a child. That's the wonderful charm of

her--part of the wonderful charm, at any rate. Some people might say she

wasn't clever, but she is _really_, you know. I admit she doesn't show

up very well in company, but that's because she's nervous. I'm nervous

and I don't show up well. She's got an acute little brain, though. You

should hear the things she says sometimes. Simple little things, some

people might think, but really, when you think about them, they're

clever. Of course, she hasn't been educated up to a good many things,

but then, if she had been, she wouldn't have kept her child-like

simplicity, would she?--She's very quick at picking things up, and I'm

lending her heaps of books. It's the most beautiful job in the world,

being teacher to her. I'm rapturously happy about it and so is she. I

could never stand these empty-headed society kind of women who can

jabber superficially in drawing-rooms about every subject under the sun,

and really, you know, haven't got an original idea in their heads. Helen

has the most wonderful and child-like originality, you know. You've

noticed it yourself, I daresay. Haven't you noticed it?--Yes, I'm sure

you must have. And to think that she really does want to marry me!"

"Why shouldn't she want to marry you?" interjected Clare, but that was

one of the remarks of which he took little notice. He went on eagerly:

"I don't know what the Head will think when he gets to know about it.

Most probably he'll be fearfully annoyed. Clanwell warned me the other

night. Apparently--" a faint touch of bitterness came into his

voice--"apparently it isn't the thing to treat your Headmaster's

daughter with anything but the most distant reserve."

"Another question," said Clare shrewdly, "is what your people will think

about it."

"My people," he replied, again with the note of bitterness in his voice,

"will probably do what they have always done whenever I have proposed

taking any fresh step in life."

"I can guess what that is. They oppose you, eh?"

"Oh, not absolutely that. They recognise my right to do what I want, but

they think I'm a fool, all the same. They don't quarrel with me. They

just go on wishing I was like my elder brother."

"What is he?"

"He works in my father's office in town. My father, you know--" he

became suddenly confidential in tone--"is a rather typical sort of

business-man. Materialist outlook--wanted me to manage a soap-works. We

never got on absolutely well together. When I told him I was going to

get a mastership at a public school he thought I was mad."

"And what will he think when you tell him you are going to marry the

Headmaster's daughter?"

He looked at her curiously, for the first time intent upon her

personally, for something in the way she had uttered that last question

set up in him the suspicion that she was laughing at him. A careful

scrutiny of her features, however, revealed no confirmation: he looked

away again, shrugged his shoulders, and said: "Probably he'll think I'm

madder than ever."

She gave him a curious glance with uptilted lips which he could not

properly interpret. "Anyway," she said, quietly, "I shouldn't tell him

that Helen's a child."

"Why not?"

Clare gave him again that curious, uninterpretable glance. "Because she

isn't, that's all."

He was recovering from his surprise and was about to say something when

she interrupted him with, perhaps, the first touch of animation that had

so far distinguished her side of the conversation. "I told you," she

said, "on the first night of term that you didn't understand Helen. And

still you don't. If you did, you'd know that she was a woman, not a

child at all."

"I wish you'd explain a little--"

"It doesn't need any explanation. You either know it or don't know it.

Apparently you _don't_ know it.... And now, Mr. Speed, I'm afraid I'll

have to go--I can't leave the boy to manage the shop by himself all

morning."

Speed had the sensation that she was slightly out of patience with him.

II

Clare brought him to earth; his dreams crumpled when he was with her;

his emotional outlook sagged, as it were, with the perhaps imagined

pricklings of her shrewdness. He hated her, ever so slightly, because he

felt sometimes between her and himself a subtle and secret hostility, a

hostility in which, because of her cool imperturbability, she had all

the advantage. But when he was not with her his imagination soared and

flamed up higher than ever; it was a fire that Clare's temperament could

only make sulky. Those final weeks of the summer term were glorious

beyond words. He took Clanwell's advice to the extent of not meeting

Helen on the school premises, but hardly a day passed without some

wonderful and secret assignation; the two of them would arrange

afternoon excursions together, picnics, at Parminters, strolls along the

Millstead road at dusk. It was all deeply and inexpressibly lovely. He

told her a great many of his own dreams and ambitions, making her share

them with him; she kindled aptly to his own enthusiasms, readily as a

child might have done. For he was certain that Clare was wrong in that:

Helen was only a child. To marry her seemed a thing of almost unearthly

delicacy; he found himself pitying her sometimes because of the future.

Above all, that she should wish to marry him, that her love should be

capable of such a solemn and ineffable desire, seemed to him nearly a

miracle. "Fragile little thing!" he said to her once, as he kissed

her--"I'm almost afraid of breaking you!"--She answered, in that wistful

childlike voice that was perhaps incongruously sombre in tone: "_Am_ I

fragile?"

Once, towards dusk, they met the Head along the Millstead road. He

raised his hat and passed them, muttering: "Taking an--um--stroll,

Helen--um--beautiful evening--um, yes--good evening, Mr. Speed!"

He wore the air of being marvellously discreet.

III

Conversation at dinner in the Masters' Common-Room turned one evening

upon Harrington. "Old Harrington's pretty bad again," Pritchard had

said. "I heard in the town to-day that he'd had another stroke."

Speed, curiously startled by the utterance of the name, exclaimed "What,

the Harringtons who keep the bookshop?--I didn't know he was ill."

"Been ill ever since I can remember," replied Pritchard, laconically.

Then Speed remembered something that the Head had once told him about

Harrington being a littérateur and and an author of books on ethics.

"I never met him," he said, tentatively, seeking to guide the

conversation into a discussion of the man.

Pritchard, ever ready to follow up a lead given to him, remarked: "You

missed something, then. He was quite a character. Used to teach here

once, you know."

"Really?"

"Used to _try_ to, anyway, when they'd let him. Couldn't keep any sort

of discipline. During his first prep they poured ink down his neck."

"Pritchard needn't talk," interposed Clanwell, laughing. "During _his_

first prep they mixed carbide and water under his chair." The rest of

the Common-Room, among whom Pritchard was no favourite, joined in the

laughter. Then Clanwell took up the thread, kinder in his narrative than

Pritchard had been. "I liked Harrington. He was a good sort, but he

wasn't made for a schoolmaster. I told him so, and after his breakdown

he took my advice and left the profession."

"Breakdown?" said Speed. "He had a breakdown then?"

"Yes, his wife died when his daughter was born. He never told us

anything about it. One morning he collapsed over a four _alpha_ English

form. I was next door. I was used to a row, but the terrible pandemonium

made me wonder if anything had happened. I went in and found the little

devils giving him sportive first-aid. They'd half undressed him. My

word!--I picked out those that were in my house and gave them a tidy

thrashing. Don't you remember, Lavery?"

"I remember," said the indolent Lavery, "you trying to persuade me to do

the same with my little lot."

"But Harrington?" queried Speed, anxious that the conversation should

not be diverted into other channels.

"Oh, well," resumed Clanwell, "he left Millstead and took to--shall we

call it literature?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?--" Clanwell laughed. "D'you mean to tell me you haven't

heard of Samuel Harrington, author of the famous 'Helping-Hand-Books'?"

"I haven't."

"Then I must lend you one or two of them. They'll do you good. Lavery

and I attribute our remarkable success in life to our careful study of

them, don't we, Lavery?"

"Do we, Clanwell?"

Ransome, wizened and Voltairish, and agreeable company when stirred to

anecdote, began: "Ah! 'How to be Powerful' was the best, though I think

'How to Become a Dominating Personality' was pretty good. The drollest

of all was 'How to Meet Difficulties.' Speed has a treat in store if he

hasn't read them. They're all in the school-library. The fellow used to

send the Head free autographed copies of each one of them as it

appeared."

Ransome, rarely beguiled into conversation, always secured a respectful

audience. After a silence he went on: "I used to know old Harrington

pretty well after he took to--writing. He once told me the entire

circumstances of his début into the literary profession. It was rather

droll."

Ransome paused, and Speed said: "I'd like to hear it."

A murmur of assent followed from the rest, and Ransome, not without

pleasure at the flattery of his being eagerly listened to, crumbled a

piece of bread by his plate and resumed. "He told me that one morning

after he'd left Millstead he was feeling especially miserable and having

a breakfast of tea and dry bread. So he said, anyway. Remember that, at

that time, he had a baby to look after. The postman brought him, that

morning, a letter from an old school friend of his, a rector in

Somerset, asking him if he would care to earn half-a-guinea by writing

for him an address on 'Self-Control' for the Young Women's Sunshine Club

at Little Pelthing, Somerset. I remember the name of the club and the

village because I remember they struck me as being rather droll at the

time. Harrington said the letter, or part of it, went something like

this: I have just become the proud father of a most wonderful little

baby boy, and you can imagine how infernally busy as well as infernally

happy I am. Could you oblige me with an address on 'Self-Control'?--You

were always rather good at dashing off essays when we were at school.

The address should have a strong moral flavour and should last from

half-an-hour to forty minutes.' ... Well, Harrington sat down to write

that address on 'Self-Control.' He told me that he knew all that anybody

need know about self-control, because he was using prodigious quantities

of it all the time he was writing. Anyway, it was a fine address. The

Reverend Henry Beauchamp Northcroft--another name droll enough to be

remembered--delivered it to the united assembly of the Little Pelthing

Young Women's Sunshine Club, and everybody said it was the finest and

most inspiring address they had ever heard from his lips. It glowed, as

it were, from within; it radiated hope; it held a wonderful and sublime

message for mankind. And, in addition, it lasted from half-an-hour to

forty minutes. Nor was this all. A wealthy and philanthropic lady in the

Reverend Henry Beauchamp Northcroft's congregation--Harrington _did_

tell me her name, but I suspect it was not droll enough for me to

remember it--suggested that, at her expense, the address should be

printed and published in pamphlet form. With Harrington's consent this

was done, and, so he told me, no fewer than twenty-five thousand copies

of 'Self-Control' were despatched to various centres in England,

America, the Colonies, and on board His Majesty's ships."

"Do you believe all this?" exclaimed Clanwell, laughing, to the

Common-Room in general.

"Whether you believe it or not," replied Ransome, severely, "it's

sufficiently droll for it to be worth hearing. And a large part of it is

true, at any rate."

"Go on then," said Clanwell.

Ransome (spreading himself out luxuriously), went on: "It seemed to

Harrington that having, to put it vulgarly, scored a fine though

anonymous bull's-eye with 'Self-Control,' he might, with profit, attempt

to do similar business on his own account. Accordingly, he wrote a

collection of some half-dozen didactic essays on such subjects as

'Immortality,' 'Health and Wealth,' 'The Art of Happiness,' and so on,

and sent them to a well-known publisher of works on religion and ethics.

This fellow, after a most unethical delay of several months, returned

them with his curt regrets and the information that such stuff was a

drug on the publishing market. Then Harrington, nothing in the least

daunted, sent them straightway off again to a publisher of sensational

novels. This last gentleman, he was a gentleman, for he replied almost

immediately, agreeing to publish if Mr. Harrington would--I'm quoting

hazily from the letter which Harrington showed me--if he would

'undertake to supply a further eighteen essays to make up a book of the

customary eighty-thousand-word length.'--'You have a distinct vein of

humour,' wrote Mr. Potts, of Larraby and Potts, Limited--that was the

firm--'and we think your work would be very saleable if you would throw

off what appears to be a feeling of restraint.'--So I guess Harrington

just threw off this feeling of restraint, whatever exactly it was, and

began on those eighteen essays.... I hope this tale isn't boring you."

"Not at all!"--"Go on!"--came the chorus. Ransome smiled.

"There isn't much to go on to. The book of essays was called

'Sky-Signs,' and it was reviewed rather pleasantly in some of the

papers. Then followed 'About It and About,' a further bundle of didactic

essays, which ran into five editions in six months. And then 'Through my

Lattice Window,' which was the sort of book you were not ashamed to take

into the pew with you and read during the offertory, provided, of

course, that it was handsomely bound in black morocco. And lastly came

the Helping-Hand-Books, which Mr. Speed must read if he is to consider

his education complete. That's all. The story's over."

After the first buzz of comment Speed said: "I suppose he made plenty of

money out of that sort of thing?"

Ransome replied: "Yes, he made it and then he lost it. He dabbled in

finance and had a geometrical theory about the rise and fall of rubber

shares. Then he got plentifully in debt and when his health began to

give way he took the bookshop because he thought it would be an easy way

to earn money. He'd have lost on that if his daughter hadn't been a born

business-woman."

"But surely," said Clanwell, "the money kept on trickling in from his

books?"

Ransome shook his head. "No, because he'd sold the copyrights for cash

down. He was a child in finance. But all the same he knew how to make

money. For that you should refer to his book, 'How to be Successful,'

_passim_. It's full of excellent fatherly advice."

Ransome added, with a hardly perceptible smile: "There's also a chapter

about Courtship and Marriage. You might find it interesting, Mr. Speed."

Speed blushed furiously.

Afterwards, strolling over to the House with Clanwell, Speed said: "I

say, was that long yarn Ransome told about Harrington true, do you

think?" Clanwell replied: "Well, it may have been. You can never be

quite certain with Ransome, though. But he does know how to tell a

story, doesn't he?" Speed agreed.

Late that night the news percolated, somehow or other, that old

Harrington was dead.

IV

Curious, perhaps, that Speed, who had never even seen the man, and whose

knowledge of him was derived almost solely from Ransome's "droll" story,

should experience a sensation of personal loss! Yet it was so,

mysteriously and unaccountably: the old man's death took his mind

further away from Millstead than anything had been able to do for some

time. The following morning he met Helen in the lane outside the school

and his first remark to her was: "I say, have you heard about old

Harrington?"

Helen said: "Yes, isn't it terrible?--I'm so sorry for Clare--I went

down to see her last night. Poor Clare!"

He saw tears in her eyes, and at this revelation of her abounding pity

and warm-heartedness, his love for her welled up afresh, so that in a

few seconds his soul was wholly in Millstead again. "You look tired,

Helen," he said, taking her by the arm and looking down into her eyes.

Then she burst into tears.

"I'm all right," she said, between gulps of sobbing. "It's so sad,

though, isn't it?--Death always frightens me. Oh, I'm so sorry for

Clare. Poor darling Clare! ... Oh, Kenneth--I _was_ miserable last night

when I came home. I didn't know what to do, I was so miserable. I--I

_did_ want to see you, and I--I walked along the garden underneath

Clanwell's room and I heard your voice in there."

He said, clasping her arm tightly: "Yes, I went to Clanwell for coffee

after prep."

She went on pathetically: "You sounded so happy--I heard you laughing.

Oh, it was terrible to hear you laughing when I was miserable!"

"Poor little child!"--He bent down suddenly and kissed her eyes. "What a

sad and forlorn little girl you are this morning!--Don't you guess why

I'm so happy nowadays?"

"Why are you?"

He said, very slowly and beautifully: "Because of you. Because you have

made my life utterly and wonderfully different. Because all the beauty

in the world reminds me of you. When I wake up in the morning with the

sun on my face I want to roar with laughter--I don't know why, except

that I'm so happy."

She smiled gratefully and looked up into his face with large, tender

eyes. "Sometimes," she said, "beauty makes me want to cry, not to laugh.

Last night, in the garden, everything was so lovely, and yet so sad.

Don't you think beautiful things are sad sometimes?"--She paused and

went on, with less excitement: "When I went in, about ten o'clock, I was

so miserable I went in the dining-room to be alone. I was crying and

father came in."

"Well?" he whispered, eagerly.

"He wanted to know what was the matter."

"And you told him about Clare's father, I suppose?"

"No," she answered. "Don't be angry," she pleaded, laying a hand on his

arm. "I don't know what made me do it--I suppose it was instinct.

Anyway, you were going to, soon, even if I hadn't. I--I told father

about--us!"

"You did?"

"Yes. Don't be angry with me."

"My darling, I'm not angry with you. What did he say?"

She came so close to him that he could feel her body trembling with

emotion. "He didn't mind," she whispered. "He didn't mind at all.

Kenneth, aren't you glad?--Isn't it fine of him?"

"Glorious!" he answered, taking a deep breath. Again the tide of joy

seemed to engulf him, joy immense and stupefying. He would have taken

her in his arms and kissed her had he not seen people coming along the

lane. "It's wonderful, Helen!" he whispered. Then some secondary thought

seemed to strike him suddenly: he said: "But why were you miserable a

little while ago? Didn't the good news make you feel happy?"

She answered, still with a touch of sadness: "I didn't know whether you

would think it was good news."--"Helen!" he exclaimed, remonstratively,

clasping her tightly to him: she went on, smiling at him: "Yes, it's

silly of me, isn't it?--But Kenneth, Kenneth, I don't know how it is,

I'm never quite certain of you--there's always a funny sort of fear in

my mind! I know it's silly. I can't help it, though. Perhaps it will all

be different some day."

"Some day!" he echoed, gazing into her uplifted eyes.

A vision, secret and excruciatingly lovely, filled their eyes for a

moment. He knew then that to marry her had become his blinding and

passionate ambition.

V

The _Millstead and District Advertiser_ had a long and sympathetic

appreciation of the late Mr. Samuel Harrington in its first July issue.

The Helping-Hand-Books were described as "pleasant little homilies

written with much charm and humour." Speed took one or two of them out

of the School Library and read them.

About a week after the funeral he called at the shop, ostensibly to buy

a book, but really to offer his condolences. He had been meaning to go,

for several days in succession, but a curious dread of an interview with

Clare had operated each time for postponement. Nor could he understand

this dread. He tried to analyse it, to discover behind it any

conceivable reason or motive; but the search was in vain. He was forced

to suppose, vaguely, that the cause of it was that slight but noticeable

temperamental hostility between himself and Clare which always resulted

in a clouding over of his dreams.

It was a chilly day for July; there was no sun, and the gas was actually

lit in the shop when he called. The boy, a smart under-sized youngster,

was there to serve him, but he asked for Miss Harrington. She must have

heard his voice, for she appeared almost straightway, dressed neatly and

soberly in black, and greeted him with a quite brisk: "Good afternoon,

Mr. Speed!"

He shook hands with her gravely and began to stammer: "I should have

called before, Miss Harrington, to offer you my sincerest sympathies,

but--"

She held up her hand in an odd little gesture of reproof and said

interrupting him: "Please don't. If you want a chat come into the back

room. Thomas can attend to the shop."

He accepted her invitation almost mechanically. It was a small room,

full of businesslike litter such as is usual in the back rooms of shops,

but a piano and bookcase gave it a touch of individuality. As she

pointed him to a seat she said: "Don't think me rude, but this is the

place for conversation. The shop is for buying things. You'll know in

future, won't you?"

He nodded somewhat vaguely. He could not determine what exactly was

astounding in her, and yet he realised that the whole effect of her was

somehow astounding. More than ever was he conscious of the subtle

hostility, by no means amounting to unfriendliness, but perhaps

importing into her regard for him a tinge of contempt.

"Do you know," he said, approaching the subject very deliberately, "that

until a very short time ago I knew nothing at all about Mr. Harrington?

You never told me."

"Why should I?" She was on her guard in an instant.

He went on: "You may think me sincere or not as you choose, but I should

like to have met him."

"He had a dislike of being met."

She said that with a touch of almost vicious asperity.

He went on, far less daunted by her rudeness than he would have been if

she had given way to emotion of any kind: "Anyway I have got to know him

as well as I can by reading his books."

"What a way to get to know him!" she exclaimed, contemptuously. She

looked him sternly in the face and said: "Be frank, Mr. Speed, and admit

that you found my father's books the most infantile trash you ever read

in your life!"

"Miss Harrington!" he exclaimed, protesting. She rose, stood over him

menacingly, and cried: "You have your chance to be frank, mind!"

He looked at her, tried to frame some polite reply, and found himself

saying astonishingly: "Well, to be perfectly candid, that was rather my

opinion."

"And mine," she added quietly.

She was calm in an instant. She looked at him almost sympathetically for

a moment, and with a sudden gesture of satisfaction sat down in a chair

opposite to his. "I'm glad you were frank with me, Mr. Speed," she said.

"I can talk to anybody who's frank with me. It's your nature to confide

in anybody who gives you the least encouragement, but it's not mine. I'm

rather reticent. I remember once you talked to me a lot about your own

people. Perhaps you thought it strange of me not to reciprocate."

"No, I never thought of it then."

"You didn't?--Well, I thought perhaps you might have done. Now that

you've shown yourself candid I can tell you very briefly the sort of man

my father was. He was a very dear old hypocrite, and I was very fond of

him. He didn't feel half the things he said in his books, though I think

he was honest enough to try to. He found a good thing and he stuck to

it. After all, writing books was only his trade, and a man oughtn't to

be judged entirely by what he's forced to do in order to make a living."

He stared at her half-incredulously. She was astounding him more than

ever. She went on, with a curious smile: "He was fifty-seven years old.

When he died he was half-way through his eleventh book. It was to have

been called 'How to Live to Three-Score-Years-and-Ten.' All about eating

nuts and keeping the bedroom windows open at nights, you know."

He wondered if he were expected to laugh.

He stammered, after a bewildered pause: "How is all this going to effect

you?--Will you leave Millstead?"

She replied, with a touch in her voice of what he thought might have

been mockery: "My father foresaw the plight I might be in some day and

thoughtfully left me his counsel on the subject. Perhaps you'd like me

to read it?"

She went over to the bookcase and took down an edition-de-luxe copy of

one of the Helping-Hand-Books.

"Here it is--'How to Meet Difficulties'--Page 38--I'll read the

passage--it's only a short one. 'How is it that the greatest and noblest

of men and women are those against whom Fate has set her most tremendous

obstacles?--Simply that it is good for a man or a woman to fight, good

to find paths fraught with dire perils and difficulties galore, good to

accept the ringing challenge of the gods! Nay, I would almost go so far

as to say: lucky is that boy or girl who is cast, forlorn and parentless

upon the world at a tender age, for if there be greatness in him or her

at all, it will be forced to show itself as surely as the warm suns of

May compel each flower to put forth her bravest splendour!' ... So now

you know, Mr. Speed!"

She had read the passage as if declaiming to an audience. It was quite a

typical extract from the works of the late Mr. Harrington: such phrases

as 'dire perils,' 'difficulties galore,' and 'ringing challenge of the

gods' contained all that was most truly characteristic of the prose

style of the Helping-Hand-Books.

Speed said, rather coldly: "Do you know what one would wonder, hearing

you talk like this?"

"What?"

"One would wonder if you had any heart at all."

Again the curious look came into her eyes and the note of asperity into

her voice. "If I had, do you think I would let you see it, Mr. Speed?"

she said.

They stared at each other almost defiantly for a moment; then, as if by

mutual consent, allowed the conversation to wander into unimportant

gossip about Millstead. Nor from those placid channels did it afterwards

stray away. Hostility of a kind persisted between them more patently

than ever; yet, in a curiously instinctive way, they shook hands when

they separated as if they were staunch friends.

As he stepped out into High Street the thought of Helen came to him as a

shaft of sunlight round the edges of a dark cloud.

VI

Term finished in a scurry of House-matches and examinations. School

House won the cricket trophy and there was a celebratory dinner at which

Speed accompanied songs and made a nervously witty speech and was

vociferously applauded. "We all know we're the best House," said

Clanwell, emphatically, "and what we've got to do is just to prove to

other people that we are." Speed said: "I've only been in School House a

term, but it's been long enough time for me to be glad I'm where I am

and not in any other House." (Cheers.) Amidst such jingoist

insincerities a very pleasant evening romped its way to a close. The

following day, the last day of term, was nearly as full of new

experiences as had been the first day. School House yard was full of

boxes and trunks waiting to be collected by the railway carriers, and in

amongst it all, small boys wandered forlornly, secretly happy yet weak

with the cumulative passion of anticipation. In the evening there was

the farewell dinner in the dining-hall, the distribution of the terminal

magazine, and the end-of-term concert, this last concluding with the

Millstead School-Song, the work of an uninspired composer in one of his

most uninspired moments. Then, towards ten o'clock in the evening, a

short service in chapel, followed by a "rag" on the school quadrangle,

brought the long last day to a close. Cheers were shouted for the

Masters, for Doctor and Mrs. Ervine, for those leaving, and

(facetiously) for the school porter. That night there was singing and

rowdyism in the dormitories, but Speed did not interfere.

He was ecstatically happy. His first term had been a triumph. And,

fittingly enough, it had ended with the greatest triumph of all. Ever

since Helen had told him of her confession to her father, Speed had been

making up his mind to visit the Head and formally put the matter before

him. That night, the last night of the summer term, after the service in

chapel, when the term, so far as the Head was concerned with it, was

finished. Speed had tapped at the door of the Head's study.

Once again the sight of that study, yellowly luminous in the

incandescent glow, set up in him a sensation of sinister attraction, as

if the room were full of melancholy ghosts. The Head was still in his

surplice, swirling his arms about the writing-table in an endeavour to

find some mislaid paper. The rows upon rows of shining leather-bound

volumes, somebody on the Synoptic Gospels, somebody else's New Testament

Commentary, seemed to surround him and enfold him like a protective

rampart. The cool air of the summer night floated in through the slit of

open window and blew the gas-light fitfully high and low. Speed thought,

as he entered the room and saw the Head's shining bald head bowed over

the writing-table: Here you have been for goodness knows how many years

and terms, and now has come the end of another one. Don't you feel any

emotion in it at all?--You are getting to be an old man: can you bear to

think of the day you first entered this old room and placed those books

on the shelves instead of those that belonged to your predecessor?--Can

you bear to think of all the generations that have passed by, all the

boys, now men, who have stared at you inside this very room, while time,

which bore them away in a happy tide, has left you for ever

stranded?--Why I, even I, can feel, after the first term, something of

that poignant melancholy which, if I were in your place, would overwhelm

me. Don't you--can't you--feel anything at all--

The Head looked up, observed Speed, and said: "Um, yes--pleased to see

you, Mr. Speed--have you come to say good-bye--catching an early train

to-morrow, perhaps--um, yes--eh?"

"No, sir. I wanted to speak to you on a private matter. Can you spare me

a few moments?"

"Oh yes, most certainly. Not perhaps the--um--usual time for seeing me,

but still--that is no matter. I shall be--um--happy to talk with you,

Mr. Speed."

Speed cleared his throat, shifted from one foot to another, and began,

rather loudly, as always when he was nervous: "Miss Ervine, sir, I

believe, spoke to you some while ago about--about herself and me, sir."

The Head placed the tips of his fingers together and leaned back in his

chair.

"That is so, Mr. Speed."

"I--I have been meaning to come and see you about it for some time. I

hope--I hope you didn't think there was anything underhand in my not

seeing you?"

The Head temporised suavely: "Well--um, yes--perhaps my curiosity did

not go so--um--so far as that. When you return to your room, Mr. Speed,

you will find there an--um--a note from me, requesting you to see me

to-morrow morning. I take it you have not seen that note?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Ah, I see. I supposed when you entered that you were catching an early

train in the morning and were--um--purposing to see me to-night

instead.... No matter. You will understand why I wished to see you, no

doubt."

"Possibly the same reason that I wished to see you."

"Ah, yes--possibly. Possibly. You have

been--um--quite--um--speedy--in--um--pressing forward your suit with my

daughter. Um, yes--_very_ speedy, I think.... Speedy--Ha--Ha--um,

yes--the play upon words was quite accidental, I assure you."

Speed, with a wan smile, declared: "I daresay I am to blame for not

having mentioned it to you before now. I decided--I scarcely know

why--to wait until term was over.... I--I love your daughter, and I

believe she loves me. That's all there is to say, I think."

"Indeed, Mr. Speed?--It must be a very--um--simple matter then."

Speed laughed, recovering his assurance now that he had made his

principal statement. "I am aware that there are complexities, sir."

The Head played an imaginary tune on his desk with his outstretched

fingers. "You must--u--listen to me for a little while, Mr. Speed. We

like you very much--I will begin, perhaps unwisely, by telling you that.

You have been all that we could have desired during this last

term--given--um--every satisfaction, indeed. Naturally, I think too of

my daughter's feelings. She is, as you say, extremely--um--fond of you,

and on you depends to a quite considerable extent her--um--happiness. We

could not therefore, my wife and I, refuse to give the matter our very

careful consideration. Now I must--um--cross-examine you a little. You

wish to marry my daughter, is that not so?"

"Yes."

"When?"

The Head flung out the question with disconcerting suddenness.

Speed, momentarily unbalanced, paused, recovered himself, and said

wisely: "When I can afford to, sir. As soon as I can afford to. You know

my salary and prospects, sir, and are the best judge of how soon I shall

be able to give your daughter the comforts to which she has been

accustomed."

"A clever reply, Mr. Speed. Um, yes--extremely clever. I gather that you

are quite convinced that you will be happy with my daughter?"

"I am quite convinced, sir."

"Then money is the only difficulty. What a troublesome thing money is,

Mr. Speed!--May I ask you whether you have yet consulted your own

parents on the matter?"

"I have not done so yet. I wanted your reply first."

"I see. And what--um--do you anticipate will be _their_ reply?"

Speed was silent for a moment and then said: "I cannot pretend that I

think they will be enthusiastic. They have never agreed with my actions.

But they have the sense to realise that I am old enough to do as I

choose, especially in such a matter as marriage. They certainly wouldn't

quarrel with me over it."

The Head stared fixedly at Speed for some while; then, with a soft,

crooning tone, began to speak. "Well, you know, Mr. Speed, you are very

young--only twenty-two, I believe."--(Speed interjected: "Twenty-three

next month, sir.")--The Head proceeded: "Twenty-three then.

It's--um--it's rather young for marriage. However, I am--um,

yes--inclined to agree with Professor Potts that one of the--um--curses

of our modern civilisation is that it pushes the--um--marriageable age

too late for the educated man." (And who the devil, thought Speed, is

Professor Potts?)... "Now it so happens, Mr. Speed, that this little

problem of ours can be settled in a way which is satisfactory to myself

and to the school, and which I think will be equally satisfactory to

yourself and my daughter. I don't know whether you know that Lavery

leaves this term?"

"I didn't know, sir."

"He has reached the--um--the retiring age. As perhaps you know, Mr.

Speed, Lavery belonged to the--um--old school. In many ways, I think,

the old methods were best, but, of course, one has to keep up with the

times. I am quite certain that the Governors will look favourably on a

very much younger man to be--um--Lavery's successor. It would also bean

advantage if he were married."

"Married!" echoed Speed.

"Yes. Married house masters are always preferred.... Then, again, Mr.

Speed, we should want a public-school man.... Of course, Lavery's is a

large House and the position is not one to be--um--lightly undertaken.

And, of course, it is for the Governors to decide, in the last resort.

But if you think about it, Mr. Speed, and if you favour the idea, it

will probably occur to you that you stand a rather good chance. Of

course it requires thinking over a great deal. Um, yes--decide nothing

in a hurry...."

Speed's mind, hazily receiving the gist of what the Head was saying,

began to execute a wild pirouette. He heard the Head's voice droning on,

but he did not properly hear anything more that was said. He heard in

snatches: "Of course you would have to take up your new duties in--um,

yes--September.... And for that purpose you would get married during the

vacation.... A great chance for you, Mr. Speed ... the Governors ...

very greatly impressed with you at Speech Day.... You would like

Lavery's .... an excellent House.... Plenty of time to think it over,

you know.... Um, yes--plenty of time.... When did you say you were going

home?"

Speed recovered himself so far as to answer: "Tuesday, sir."

"Um, yes--delightful, that is--you will be able to dine with us

to-morrow night then, no doubt?--Curious place, Millstead, when

everybody has gone away... Um, yes--extremely delightful... Think it

over very carefully, Mr. Speed ... we dine at seven-thirty during the

vacations, remember.... Good night, then, Mr. Speed.... Um, yes--Good

night!"

Speed staggered out as if intoxicated.

VII

That was why, hearing the singing and shouting in the dormitories that

night, Speed did not interfere. With happiness surging all around him

how could he have the heart to curtail the happiness of others?--About

half-past ten he went round distributing journey-money, and to each

dormitory in turn he said farewell and wished a pleasant vacation. The

juniors were scampering over one another's beds and pelting one another

with pillows. Speed said merely: "If I were you fellows, I should get to

sleep pretty soon: Hartopp will ring the bells at six, you know."

Then he went back into his own room, his room that would not be his any

more, for next term he would be in Lavery's. Noisy and insincere as had

been his protestations at the House Dinner about the superiority of

School House over any other, there was yet a sense in which he felt

deeply sorry to leave the place where he had been so happy and

successful. He looked back in memory to that first evening of term, and

remembered his first impression of the room assigned to him; then it had

seemed to him lonely, forlorn, even a little dingy. Hardly a trace of

that earliest aspect remained with it now. At eleven o'clock on the last

night of term it glowed with the warmth of a friendly heart; it held out

loving arms that made Speed, even amidst his joy, piteously sorry to

leave it. The empty firegrate, in which he had never seen a fire, lured

him with the vision of all the cosy winter nights that he had missed.

Outside it was moonlight again, as when, a month before, he had waited

by the pavilion steps on the evening of the Speech Day. From his open

lattice-window he could see the silver tide lapping against the walls

and trees, the pale sea of the pitch on which there would be no more

cricket, the roof and turret of the pavilion gleaming with liquid

radiance. All was soft and silent, glossy beneath the high moon. It was

as if everything had endured agelessly, as if the passing of a term were

no more than the half-heard tick of a clock in the life of Millstead.

Leaning out of the window he heard a voice, boyish and sudden, in the

junior dormitory below.

"I say, Bennett, are you going by the 8:22?"

An answer came indistinguishably, and then the curt command of the

prefect imposing silence, silence which, reigned over by the moon and

the sky of stars, lasted through the short summer night until dawn.