He allowed all the rest to precede him from the room. When he was alone
he smiled sheepishly, and also disdainfully; he knew that the chasm
between himself and the others was a real chasm, and not a figment of
his childish diffidence, as he had sometimes suspected it to be. Then
he turned the gas out. A beautiful faint silver surged through the
window. While the debate was in progress, the sun had been going about
its business of the dawn, unperceived.
"I shall write a letter!" he kept saying to himself. "He'll never let
me explain myself properly if I start talking. I shall write a letter.
I can write a very good letter, and he'll be bound to take notice of it.
He'll never be able to get over my letter."
In the school-yard daylight reigned. The debaters had already
disappeared. Trafalgar Road and Duck Bank were empty and silent under
rosy clouds. Instead of going straight home Edwin went past the Town
Hall and through the Market Place to the Sytch Pottery. Astounding that
he had never noticed for himself how beautiful the building was! It was
a simply lovely building!
"Yes," he said, "I shall write him a letter, and this very day, too!
May I be hung, drawn, and quartered if he doesn't have to read my letter
to-morrow morning!"