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diff --git a/old/52211-0.txt b/old/52211-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4ac093f..0000000 --- a/old/52211-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7425 +0,0 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52211 *** - -THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN - -A Tragi-Comedy - -By Hugh Walpole - -Author Of “Fortitude,” “The Prelude To Adventure,” Etc. - -New York George H. Doran Company - -1911 - - - -“The Way Here Also Was Very Wearisome Through Dirt And Shabbiness: Nor -Was There On All This Ground So Much As One Inn Or Victualling-House -Wherein To Refresh The Feebler Sort.”—Pilgrim's Progress - - - -TO PUNCH - -My Dear Punch, - -There are a thousand and one reasons why I should dedicate this book to -you. It would take a very long time and much good paper to give you them -all; but here, at any rate, is one of them. Do you remember a summer day -last year that we spent together? The place was a little French town, -and we climbed its high, crooked street, and had tea in an inn at the -top—an inn with a square courtyard, bad, impossible tea, and a large -black cat. - -It was on that afternoon that I introduced you for a little time to Mr. -Perrin, and you, because you have more understanding and sympathy than -anyone I have ever met, understood him and sympathized. For the good -things that you have done for me I can never repay you, but for the good -things that you did on that afternoon for Mr. Perrin I give you this -book. - -Yours affectionately, HUGH WALPOLE. - -Chelsea, January 1911. - - - - - -CONTENTS - -THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN - -CHAPTER I—MR. VINCENT PERRIN DRINKS HIS TEA AND GIVES MR. TRAILL SOUND -ADVICE - -CHAPTER II—INTRODUCES A CONFUSING COMPANY OF PERSONS, WITH SPECIAL -EMPHASIS ON MRS. COMBER - -CHAPTER III—CONCERNS ALL THE WONDERFUL THINGS THAT MAY HAPPEN BETWEEN -SOUP AND DESSERT - -CHAPTER IV—BIRKLAND LOQUITUR - -CHAPTER V—A GAME OF FOOTBALL AND A DANCE IN PENDRAGON HAVE THEIR PART IN -THE SCHEME OF THINGS - -CHAPTER VI—SÆVA INDIGNATIO - -CHAPTER VII—THE BATTLE OP THE UMBRELLA; THEY OPEN FIRE - -CHAPTER VIII—THE BATTLE OP THE UMBRELLA; CAMPS ARE FORMED—ALSO SOME -SKIRMISHING - -CHAPTER IX—THE BATTLE OP THE UMBRELLA; WITH THE LADIES - -CHAPTER X—THE BATTLE OF THE UMBRELLA; “WHOM THE GODS WISH TO -DESTROY....” - -CHAPTER XI—MR. PERRIN SEES DOUBLE - -CHAPTER XII—MR. PERRIN WALKS IN SLEEP - -CHAPTER XIII—MR. PERRIN LISTENS WHILE THEY ALL MAKE SPEECHES - -CHAPTER XIV—MR. PERRIN REACHES THE HEART OF HIS KINGDOM - -CHAPTER XV—THE GOLDEN VIEW - - - - -THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN - - - - -CHAPTER I—MR. VINCENT PERRIN DRINKS HIS TEA AND GIVES MR. TRAILL SOUND -ADVICE I. - -VINCENT PERRIN said to himself again and again as he climbed the hill: -“It shall be all right this term”—and then, “It shall be”—and then, -“This term.” A cold wintry sun watched him from above the brown shaggy -wood on the horizon; the sky was a pale and watery blue, and on its -surface white clouds edged with gray lay like saucers. A little wind -sighed and struggled amongst the hedges, because Mr Perrin had nearly -reached the top of the hill, and there was always a breeze there. He -stopped for a moment and looked back. The hill on which he was stood -straight out from the surrounding country; it was shaped like a -sugar-loaf, and the red-brown earth of its fields seemed to catch the -red light of the sun; behind it was green, undulating country, in front -of it the blue, vast sweep of the sea. - -“It shall be all right this term,” said Mr. Perrin, and he pulled his -rather faded greatcoat about his ears, because the little wind was -playing with the short bristly hairs at the back of his neck. He was -long and gaunt; his face might have been considered strong had it not -been for the weak chin and a shaggy, unkempt mustache of a nondescript -pale brown. His hands were long and bony, and the collar that he wore -was too high, and propped his neck up, so that he had the effect of -someone who strained to overlook something. His eyes were pale and -watery, and his eyebrows of the same sandy color as his mustache. His -age was about forty-five, and he had been a master at Moffatt's for over -twenty years. His back was a little bent as he walked; his hands were -folded behind his back, and carried a rough, ugly walking-stick that -trailed along the ground. - -His eyes were fixed on the enormous brown block of buildings on the top -of the hill in front of him: he did not see the sea, or the sky, or the -distant Brown Wood. - -The air was still with the clear suspense of an early autumn day. The -sound of a distant mining stamp drove across space with the ring of -a hammer, and the tiny whisper—as of someone who tells eagerly, but -mysteriously, a secret—was the beating of the waves far at the bottom of -the hill against the rocks. - -Paint blue smoke hung against the saucer-shaped clouds above the -chimneys of Moffatt's; in the air there was a sharp scented smell, of -some hidden bonfire. - -The silence was broken by the sound of wheels, and an open cab drove up -the hill. In it were seated four small boys, surrounded by a multitude -of bags, hockey-sticks, and rugs. The four small boys were all very -small indeed, but they all sat up when they saw Mr. Perrin, and touched -their hats with a simultaneous movement. Mr. Perrin nodded sternly, -glanced at them for a moment, and then switched his eyes back to the -brown buildings again. - -“Barker Minor, French, Doggett, and Rogers.” he said to himself quickly; -“Barker Minor, French.. . ;” then his mind swung back to its earlier -theme again, and he said out loud, hitting the road with his stick, “It -shall be all right this term.” - -The school clock—he knew the sound so well that he often thought he -heard it at home in Buckinghamshire—struck half-past three. He hastened -his steps. His holidays had been good—better than usual; he had played -golf well; the men at the Club had not been quite such idiots and fools -as they usually were: they had listened to him quite patiently about -Education—shall it be Greek or German? Public School Morality, and What -a Mother can do for her Boy—all favorite subjects of his. - -Perhaps this term was not going to be so bad—perhaps the new man would -be an acquisition: he could not, at any rate, be worse than Searle of -the preceding term. The new man was, Perrin had heard, only just down -from the University—he would probably do what Perrin suggested. - -No, this term was to be all right. He never liked the autumn term; -but there were a great many new boys, his house was full, and then—he -stopped once more and drew a deep breath—there was Miss Desart. He -tried to twist the end of his mustache, but some hairs were longer -than others, and he never could obtain a combined movement.... Miss -Desart.... He coughed. - -He passed in through the black school gates, his shabby coat flapping at -his heels. - -The distant Brown Wood, as it surrendered to the sun, flamed with gold; -the dark green hedges on the hill slowly caught the light. II. - -The master's common room in the Lower School was a small square room -that was inclined in the summer to get very stuffy indeed. It stood, -moreover, exactly between the kitchen, where meals were prepared, and -the long dining-room, where meals were eaten, and there was therefore -a perpetual odor of food in the air. On a “mutton day”—there were three -“mutton” days a week—this odor hung in heavy, clammy folds about the -ceiling, and on those days there were always more boys kept in than on -the other days—on so small a thing may punishment hang. - -To-day—this being the first day of the term—-the room was exceedingly -tidy. On the right wall, touching the windows, were two rows of -pigeon-holes, and above each pigeon-hole was printed, on a white label, -a name— - -“Mr. Perrin,” - -“Mr. Dormer,” - -“Mr. Clinton,” - -“Mr. Traill.” - -Each master had two pigeon-holes into which he might put his papers and -his letters; considerable friction had been caused by people putting -their papers into other people's pigeon-holes. On the opposite wall was -an enormous, shiny map of the world, with strange blue and red lines -running across it. The third wall was filled with the fireplace, over -which were two stern and dusty photographs of the Parthenon, Athens, and -St. Peter's, Rome. - -Although the air was sharp with the first early hint of autumn, the -windows were open, and a little part of the garden could be seen—a -gravel path down which golden-brown leaves were fluttering, a round -empty flower-bed, a stone wall. - -On the large table in the middle of the room tea was laid, one plate of -bread and butter, and a plate of rock buns. Dormer, a round, red-faced, -cheerful-looking person with white hair, aged about fifty, and Clinton, -a short, athletic youth, with close-cropped hair and a large mouth, were -drinking tea. Clinton had poured his into his saucer and was blowing at -it—a practice that Perrin greatly disliked. - -However, this was the first day of term, and everyone was very friendly. -Perrin paused a moment in the doorway. “Ah! here we are again!” he said, -with easy jocularity. - -Dormer gave him a hand, and said, “Glad to see you, Perrin; had good -holidays?” - -Clinton took the last rock bun, and shouted with a kind of roar, “You -old nut!” - -Perrin, as he moved to the table, thought that it was a little hard that -all the things that irritated him most should happen just when he was -most inclined to be easy and pleasant. - -“Ha! no cake!” he said, with a surprised air. - -“Oh! I say, I'm so sorry,” said Clinton, with his mouth full, “I took -the last. Ring the bell.” - -Perrin gulped down his annoyance, sat down, and poured out his tea. It -was cold and leathery. Dormer was busily writing lists of names. The -Lower School was divided into two houses—Dormer was house-master of -one, and Perrin of the other. The other two junior men were under -house-masters: Clinton belonged to Dormer; and Traill, the new man, to -Perrin. Both houses were in the same building, but the sense of rival -camps gave a pleasant spur of emulation and competition both to work and -play. - -“I say, Perrin, “have you made out your bath-lists? Then there are -locker-names—I want.” Perrin snapped at his bread and butter. “Ah, -Dormer, please—my tea first.” - -“All right; only, it's getting on to four.” - -For some moments there was silence. Then there came timid raps on the -door. Perrin, in his most stentorian voice, shouted, “Come in!” - -The door slowly opened, and there might be seen dimly in the passage a -misty cloud of white Eton collars and round, white faces. There was a -shuffling of feet. - -Perrin walked slowly to the door. - -“Here we all are again! How pleasant! How extremely pleasant! All of -us eager to come back, of course—um—yes. Well, you know you oughtn't to -come now. Two minutes past four. I 'll take your names then—another five -minutes. It's up on the board. Well, Sexton? Hadn't you eyes? Don't you -know that ten minutes past four is ten minutes past four and not four -o'clock?” - -“Yes, sir, please, sir—but, sir—” - -Perrin closed the door, and walked slowly back to the fireplace. - -“Ha, ha,” he said, smiling reflectively; “had him there!” - -Dormer was muttering to himself, “Wednesday, 9 o'clock, Bilto, Cummin; -10 o'clock, Sayer, Long. Thursday, 9 o'clock—” - -The golden leaves blew with a whispering chatter down the path. - -The door opened again, and someone came in—Traill, the new man. Perrin -looked at him with curiosity and some excitement. The first impression -of him, standing there in the doorway, was of someone very young -and very eager to make friends. Someone young, by reason of his very -dress—the dark brown Norfolk jacket, light gray flannel trousers, turned -up and short, showing bright purple socks and brown brogues. His hair, -parted in the middle and brushed back, was very light brown; his eyes -were brown and his cheeks tanned. His figure was square, his back -very broad, his legs rather short—he looked, beyond everything else, -tremendously clean. - -He stopped when he saw Perrin, and Dormer looked up and introduced them. -Perrin was relieved that he was so young. Searle, last year, had been -old enough to have an opinion of his own—several opinions of his own; he -had contradicted Perrin on a great many points, and towards the end -of the term they had scarcely been on speaking terms. Searle was a -pig-headed ass.... - -But Traill evidently wanted to “know”—was quite humble about it, -and sat, pulling at his pipe, whilst Perrin enlarged about lists and -dormitories and marks and discipline to his hearts content. “I must say -as far as order goes I 've never found any trouble. It 's in a man if -he 's going to do it—I've always managed them all right—never any -trouble—hum, ha! Yes, you 'll find them the first few days just a little -restive—seeing what you 're made of, you know; drop on them, drop on -them.” - -Traill asked about the holiday task. - -“Oh, yes, Dormer set that. Ivanhoe—Scott, you know. Just got to read out -the questions, and see they don't crib. Let them go when you hear the -chapel bell.” - -Traill was profuse in his thanks. - -“Not at all—anything you want to know.” - -Perrin smiled at him. - -There was, once again, the timid knock at the door. The door was opened, -and a crowd of tiny boys shuffled in, headed by a larger boy who had -the bold look of one who has lost all terror of masters, their ways, and -their common rooms. - -“Well, Sexton?” Perrin cleared his throat. - -“Please, sir, you told me to bring the new boys. These are all I could -find, sir—Pippin Minor is crying in the matron's room, sir.” Sexton -backed out of the room. - -Perrin stared at the agitated crowd for some moments without saying -anything. The boys were herded together like cattle, and were staring at -him with eyes that started from their round, close-cropped heads. Perrin -took their names down. Then he talked to them for three minutes about -discipline, decency, and decorum; then he reminded them of their -mothers, and finally said a word about serving their country. - -Then he passed on to the subject of pocket-money. “It will be safer for -you to hand it over to me,” he said slowly and impressively. “Then you -shall have it when you want it.” - -A slight shiver of apprehension passed through the crowd; then slowly, -one by one, they delivered up their shining silver. One tiny boy—he -had apparently no neck and no legs; he was very chubby—had only two -halfcrowns. He clutched these in his hot palm until Perrin said, “Well, -Rackets?” - -Then, with eyes fixed devouringly upon them, the boy delivered them up. - -“I don't like to see you so fond of money, Rackets.” Perrin dropped -the half-crowns slowly into his trouser pocket, one after the other. “I -don't think you will ever see these half-crowns again.” He smiled. - -Rackets began to choke. His fist, which had closed again as though the -money was still there, moved forward. A large, fat tear gathered slowly -in his eye. He struggled to keep it back—he dug his fist into it, turned -round, and fled from the room. - -Perrin was amused. “Caught friend Rackets on the hip,” he said. - -Then suddenly, in the distance, an iron bell began to clang. The four -men put on their gowns, gathered books together, and moved to the door. -Traill hung back a little. “You take the big room with me, Traill,” said -Dormer. “I 'll give you paper and blotting-paper.” - -They moved slowly out of the room, Perrin last. A door was opened. There -was a sudden cessation of confused whispers—complete silence, and -then Perrin's voice: “Question one. Who were Richard I., Gurth, Wamba, -Brian-de-Bois-Guilbert?.. . B,r,i,a,n—hyphen...” - -The door closed. III. - -A few papers fluttered about the table. It was growing dark outside, and -a silver moon showed above the dark mass of the garden wall. - -The brown leaves, now invisible, passed rustling and whispering about -the path. Into the room there stole softly, from the kitchen, the smell -of onions.... - - - - -CHAPTER II—INTRODUCES A CONFUSING COMPANY OF PERSONS, WITH SPECIAL -EMPHASIS ON MRS. COMBER I. - -IT would be fitting at this moment, were it possible, to give Traill's -impressions, at the end of the first week, of the place and the people. -But here one is met by the outstanding and dominating difficulty that -Traill himself was not given to gathering impressions at all—he felt -things, but he never saw them; he recorded opinions in simple language -and an abbreviated vocabulary, but it was all entirely objective; -motives, the way that things hung and were interdependent one upon the -other, the sense of contrast and of the incessant jostling of comedy on -tragedy and of irony upon both, never hit him anywhere. - -Nevertheless, he had, in a clear, clean-cut way, his opinions at the end -of the first week. - -There is a letter of his to a college friend that is interesting, -and there are some other things in a letter to his mother; but he was -engaged, quite naturally, in endeavoring to keep up with the confusing -medley of “things to be done and things not to be done” that that first -week must necessarily entail. - -His relations to Perrin and Perrin's relations to him are, it may be -said here now, once and for all, the entire motif of this episode—it -is from first to last an attempt to arrive at a decision as to the real -reasons of the catastrophe that ultimately occurred; and so, that being -the case, it may seem that the particulars as to the rest of the -people in the place, and, indeed, the place itself, are extraneous and -unnecessary; but they all helped, every one of them, in their own way -and their own time, to bring about the ultimate disaster, and so they -must have their place. - -Traill had learnt during his three years at Cambridge that, above all -things, one must not worry. He had been inclined, a little at first, to -think, after the easy indolence of Clifton, that one ought to bother. -He had found that two thirds in his Historical Tripos and a “Blue” for -Rugby football were very easily; obtained; he found that the second of -these things led to a popularity that invited a pleasant indifference to -thought and discussion, and he was extremely happy. - -His “Blue” would undoubtedly have secured him something better than a -post at Moffatt's had he taken more trouble; but He had left it, lazily, -until the last and had been forced to accept what he could get; in a -term or two he hoped to return to Clifton. - -All this meant that his stay at Moffatt's was in the nature of an -interlude. He buoyantly regarded it as a month or two of “learning the -ropes,” and he could not therefore he expected to regard masters, boys, -or buildings with any very intense seriousness. It is, indeed, one of -the most curious aspects of the whole affair that he remained, for so -long a period, blind to all that was going on. - -In his motives, in his actions, he was of a surprising simplicity. He -found the world an entirely delightful place—there was Rugby football in -the winter, and cricket in the summer; there were splendid walks; there -was a week in town every now and again; as to people, there was his -mother—a widow, and he was her only son—whom he entirely worshiped; -there were one or two excellent friends of his from Clifton and -Cambridge; there was no one whom he really disliked; and there were one -or two girls, hazily, not very seriously, in the distance, whom he had -liked very much indeed. - -He read a little—liked it when he had time; had a passion for Napoleon, -whose campaigns he had followed confusedly at Cambridge; and was even -stirred—again when he had time—by certain sorts of poetry. - -And it is this that leads me to one of the questions that are most -difficult of decision—as to how strongly, if indeed at all, he had any -feeling for beauty before he met Isabel Desart. - -He certainly—if he had it at this time—could not put it into words; but -I believe that he had, in the back of his brain, a kind of consciousness -about it all, and his meeting with Isabel fired what had been lying -there waiting. - -He never, certainly, talked about it, but it will be noticed that -he went to the wood a great many times, even before he felt Isabel's -influence, and that he realized quite vividly certain aspects of -Pendragon and the Flutes; and he would not have cared for Richard -Feverel quite so passionately had he not had something—some poetry and -feeling—already in him. - -The reverse of the shield is, at any rate, given in that first letter -to his mother. He says of Moffatt's: “You never saw anything so hideous. -The red brick all looks so fresh, the stone corridors all smell so new, -the iron and brass of the place is all so strong and regular. It's -like the labs at Cambridge on an extensive scale; you'd think they were -inventing gases or something, not teaching boys the way they should -go.... All the same, coming up the hill the other night, with the -sun setting behind it, it looked quite black and grand—it 's the -fresh-lobster color of it that I can't stand...” - -That shows that he was, to some degree at any rate, sensitive to the -way that the place looked, and he, in all probability, felt a great deal -more about it than he ever said to anyone. - -Cambridge may have done something for him—few people can spend three -years with these gray palaces and blue waters without some kind of -development, although probably—because we are English—it is unconscious. -II. - -He had, during that first week, too much to do to get any very concrete -idea of the staff. On the first morning of term there was a masters' -meeting, and he could see them all sitting, heavily, despondently, in -conclave. There was a gradation of seats, and Traill, of course, took -the lowest—a little, hard, sharp one near the window with a shelf just -above his head, and it knocked him if he moved. - -The Rev. Moy-Thompson, the head master—a venerable-looking clergyman, -with a long grizzled heard and bony fingers—sat at the end of the table -in an impatient way, as though he were longing for an excuse to fly -into a temper. For the others, Traill only noticed one or two; Perrin, -Dormer, and Clifton were there, of course. There was a large stout -man with a heavy mustache and a sharp voice like a creaking door; a -clergyman, thin and rather haggard, with a white wall of a collar much -too big for him; an agitated little Frenchman, who seemed to expect that -at any moment he might be the victim of a practical joke; a thin, bony -little man with a wiry mustache and a biting, cynical speech that seemed -to goad Moy-Thompson to fury; a nervous and bald-headed man, whose -hand continually brushed his mustache and whose manner was exceedingly -deprecating. There were others, but these struck Traill's eyes as they -roved about. - -During the discussion that followed concerning the moving of boys up -and the moving of boys down, the time of lock-up, the possibilities and -disadvantages of the new boys, it seemed to be everybody's intention -to be as unpleasant as possible under cover of an agreeable manner. On -several occasions it seemed that the storm was certain to break, and -Traill bent eagerly forward in his seat; but the danger was averted. - -As the week passed, he found that these men grew more distinct and -individual. The stout man with the heavy mustache was called Comber; he -had once been a famous football player, and was now engaged on a book -concerning the athletes of Greece. The clergyman, the Rev. Stuart, was -very quiet except on questions of ritual and ceremony, and these things -stirred him into a passion. The little Frenchman, Monsieur Pons, spent -his time in hating England and preparing to leave it—an escape that he -never achieved. - -The little man with the mustache, Birkland by name, seemed to Traill the -most “interesting” of them. He was fierce and caustic in his manner to -everybody and was feared by the whole staff. - -White, the nervous man, never, so far as Traill could see, opened his -mouth; and if he did say anything, no one paid the slightest attention. - -None of these men, Traill discovered, concerned him very closely, as his -work was for the most part at the Lower School. He was pleasant to all -of them, and, if he had thought about it at all, would have said that -they liked him; but he did not think about it. - -His relations with Dormer, Perrin, and Clinton were quite agreeable. -Dormer was kind and helpful in a fatherly way; Clinton admired his -football and liked to compare Oxford (at which he had, several years -before, been a shining light) with Traill's own university; Perrin asked -him into his sitting-room for coffee and talked School Education to him -at infinite length. - -Everyone, during this first week, was quite pleasant and agreeable. III. - -The ladies of the establishment came to Traill's notice more slowly; -and they came to him, of course, considering his temperament, quite -indefinitely and without his own immediate realization of anything. He -could point, of course, to the moment of his meeting Isabel, because, -from that moment, his life was changed; but it was the meeting rather -than any keen and tangible idea of her that he realized. - -It is essential, however, that Mrs. Comber should appear on the scene a -good deal more clearly than he would ever probably see her. She had so -much to do with everything that occurred—quite unconsciously, poor lady, -as indeed she was always unconscious of anything until it was over—that -she demands a close attempt at accurate presentation. - -The immediate impressions that she left on any observer, however -casual, were of size and color, and of all the things that go with those -qualities. She was large, immense, and seemed, from her movements and -her air of rather tentatively and timidly embracing the world, to be -even larger. - -Her hair was of a blackness and her cheeks of a redness that hinted at -foreign blood, but was derived in reality from nothing more than Cornish -descent—and that indeed may, if you please, be taken as foreign enough. -There was a great deal of hair piled on her head, and in her continual -smiles and anxiety to be pleasant there seemed, too, to be a great deal -of her red cheeks. - -In those earlier days, the daughter of a country clergyman, and the -youngest of six sisters, she had been, when so permitted, jolly, noisy, -with a tremendous sense of life. The key that was going, she believed, -to unlock life for her was Romance, and she looked eagerly and -enthusiastically down the dusty road to watch for the coming of some -knight. When he came in the person of Freddie Comber, young, handsome, -athletic, and the most devout of lovers, she felt that, now that her -lamp was lighted, she had only got to keep the flame burning and she -would be happy for ever. That—the keeping of it alight—seemed, as she -looked at the handsome and ardent Freddie, an easy enough thing to do. -She did not know that Fate very often, having given a tempting glimpse -and even a positive handling of its burnished brass and intricate -tracing, removes it altogether—merely, as it may seem to some cynical -observers of life, for the fun of the thing. In any case, from the -moment of her marriage, Mrs. Comber's eager hands found nothing to -hold on to at all, and she passed, in the ensuing years from a -plucky determination to make the “second best” do, to the final blind -acquiescence in anything at all that might have the faintest resemblance -to that earlier glorious radiance. - -Freddie Comber's transition from the handsome, enthusiastic young lover -into the stout, lethargic and querulous Mr. Comber, master of the Middle -Fourth and anticipatory author of a work on the athletes of Greece, -would need an exhaustive treatise on “Public School Education as applied -to our Masters” for its reasonable analysis. Perhaps this faithful -account of the relations of Perrin and Traill may offer some solution to -that and other more complex riddles. - -It says, however, everything for Mrs. Comber's pluck and determined -stupidity that she lived, even now, after fifteen years' married life, -at the threshold of expectation. Things that were apparent to the -complete stranger in his first five minutes' interview with Comber were -hidden, wilfully and proudly hidden, from her. - -She yielded to facts, however, in this one particular, that she extended -her attempts at Romance to wider fields. It always might return as far -as Freddie was concerned—she was continually hoping and expecting that -it would; but meanwhile she dug diligently in other grounds. Her three -boys—fat, stolid, stupid, pugnacious—cared, they showed her quite -plainly, nothing for her at all; but she put that down to their age, -to their school, even to their appetites, their clothes, anything that -pointed to a probable change in the future. In their holidays she spent -her days in eagerly loving them and being repulsed, and then in -hiding her love under a troubled indifference and being entirely -disregarded.... They were unpleasant boys. - -Another place for digging was the ground of “things,” of property. -Having had nothing at all when she was a girl, and having almost -nothing—they were very poor, and she “managed” badly—now, she had always -had an intense feeling for possession. She was generous to an amazing -degree, and would give anything, in her tangled, impetuous kind of way, -to anybody without a moment's thought. But she loved her valuables. They -were very few. Potatoes and cabbages, clothing and school-bills for the -boys, consumed any money that there might happen to be, and consumed it -in a muddled, helpless kind of way that she was never able to prevent or -correct. But things had come to her—been given, left, or eagerly seized -in a wild moment's extravagance,—and these she cherished with all her -eyes and hands. The peacock-blue Liberty screen, the ormolu clock, some -few pieces of dainty Dresden china, some brass Indian pots, a small but -musically charming piano, some sketches and two good prints, and edition -de luxe of Walter Pater (a wedding-present, and she had never opened one -of these beautiful volumes), some silver, a teapot, a tray, some cups -that Freddie had won in an earlier, more glorious period, some small -pieces of jewelry—over these things she passed every morning with a -delicate, lingering touch. - -Clumsy and awkward as she generally was, when she approached her -valuables she became another person: she would lie awake thinking about -them.... They seemed—dumb things as they were—to give her something of -the affection for which, from more eloquent persons, she was always so -continually searching. - -She was as clumsy in her relations to all her neighbors and -acquaintances as she was in her movements and her finances. She was -famous for her want of tact; famous, too, for a certain coarseness and -bluntness of speech; famous for a childlike and transparent attempt to -make people like her—an attempt that, from its transparency, always with -wiser and more cynical persons failed. - -She generally thought of three things at once and tried to talk about -them all; she was quite aware that most of the ladies connected with -the town and the neighborhood disliked her, and she never, although -she wondered in a kind of muddled dismay why it was, could discover -a satisfactory reason. She spent her years in cheerfully rushing into -people's lives and being hurriedly bundled out again—which “bundling,” -at every reiteration of it, left her as confused and dismayed as before. - -But against all this rejection and muddled confusion there was, of -course, to be set Isabel Desart. What Miss Desart was to Mrs. Comber -no simple succession of printed words can possibly say. She was, in her -free, spontaneous fashion, a great many things to a great many people; -but to none of them was she quite the special and wonderful gift that -she was to Mrs. Comber. - -Perhaps it was some feeling of this kind that brought her so often, and -for so long a period, down to Moffatt's—a proceeding that her London -friends could never even vaguely understand. That she—having, as she -might, such a glorious “time” in London behind her—should care to go -and stay for so long a period at that dullest of places, a school, with -those dullest and most arid of people, scholastic authorities (this term -to include wives as well as husbands), was indeed to them all a total -mystery. - -Mrs. Comber, with all her faults and insufficiencies, would have seemed -a poor enough answer to the riddle as an answer; it was, in fact, only -partial. - -In addition to Mrs. Comber, there was Cornwall; and Cornwall, as it was -at Moffatt's, was quite enough to draw Isabel unerringly, irresistibly. - -Of the place—the surroundings, the look of it all, the “sense” of -it—there is more to be said in a moment—being seen, more completely -perhaps, with Traill's new and unaccustomed eyes; it is enough here -that, on every separate occasion of her coming, it meant to Isabel -deeper and more vital experiences. She was beginning even to be afraid -that it was not going to let her go again: its sea, its hard, black -rocks, its golden gorge, its deep green lanes, its gray-roofed cottages -that nestled in bowls and cups of color as no cottages nestle anywhere -else in the world—these were all things that she dreamed of afterwards, -when she had left them, to the extent, it began to seem to her, of -danger and confusion. - -She herself “fitted in” as only a few people out of the many that go -there could ever do. - -With her rather short brown hair that curled about her head, her -straight eyes, her firm mouth, her vigorous, unerring movements, the -swing of her arms as she walked, she seemed as though her strength -and honesty might forbid her softer graces. To most people she was a -delightful boy—splendidly healthy, direct, uncompromising, sometimes -startling in her hatred of things and people, sometimes arrogant in her -assured enthusiasms; Mrs. Comber, who, in her muddled eager way, had -told her so much, knew of the other side of her, of her tenderness, her -understanding. - -The boys loved her, and she had been their envoy on many occasions of -peril and disaster; they always trusted her to carry things through, and -she generally did. - -It was only, perhaps, with the other ladies of the establishment that -she did not altogether find favor. The other ladies consisted of Mrs. -Moy-Thompson, Mrs. Dormer, and the lady matrons—Miss Bonhurst, the two -Misses Madder, and Miss Tremans. - -Mrs. Moy-Thompson, a thin, faded lady in perpetual black, had long ago -been crushed into a miserable negligibility by her masterful husband. -She very seldom spoke at all and, when she did, hurriedly corrected what -she had just said in a sudden fear lest she should be misunderstood. She -allowed her husband to bully her to his heart's content. - -Mrs. Dormer, stern, with the manner of one who never says what she -means, had never got over the disappointment of her husband having, -fifteen years before, missed the head-mastership. She was continually -finding new reasons for this omission and venting her dislike on -people who had had nothing whatever to do with it. She was neat and -puritanical, and hated Mrs. Comber because she was neither of these -things. - -Of the matrons, it may be enough to say that they all disliked each -other, but were perfectly ready to combine in their mutual dislike -of the other ladies; they felt that their position demanded that they -should assert their birth and breeding; they also felt that Mrs. Comber -and Mrs. Dormer looked down on them. - -The best of them was the matron of the Lower School, the elder Miss -Madder—stout and kind-hearted and extremely capable. She made up for the -undeniable fact that no one had ever asked her to change her name for -a pleasanter one by loving the small boys of the Lower School with a -warmth and good-humor that they none of them, in after life, forgot. - -And so there they all were—most of them—a background, and simply, as -individuals, witnesses to the whole case and, perhaps, by reason of -their very existence, factors in assisting the result. - -They were, most of them, never in young Traill's consciousness at -all—Miss Madder, perhaps because she was at the Lower School; Mrs. -Comber, because Isabel was staying with her... and Isabel. IV. - -A word, finally, about the surrounding country. - -It becomes, perhaps, at once most definitely presented if you take the -Brown Hill as the center, and Pendragon to the right along the coast, -and Truro inland to the left—both at an equal distance—as the farthest -boundaries. - -Between Truro and Moffatt's there is a ridge of hill—undulating, gently, -vaguely shaped, with its cool brown colors melting into the blue or gray -of the sky as dim clouds melt into one another. - -The Brown Hill itself rises sharply, steeply, straight from the sea, -with the little village—Chattock—at its feet, curling with its steep, -cobbled street up the incline. Halfway down the hill there is a wood—the -Brown Wood—and it hangs with all its feathery trees in friendly, eager -fashion over the little white-stoned and yellow-sanded cove (so tiny and -so perfect in its shape and color that it almost audibly cries out not -to be touched). There is a little part of the wood where the trees part -and you may sit, in a kind of magical wonder, right over the gray carpet -of the sea, hearing what the wood, with its creaking and bending and -rustling, is saying to the water and what the water, with its slipping -and hissing and singing, is saying to the wood. Of the two towns -Pendragon has become, from the invasion of the Vandals, modern and -monotonous. It had, not so long ago, a cove on its outskirts—that was -the whole of Cornwall in a tiny space; now there is a row of modern -villas, red-roofed and wooden-paled. Traill, in his visits there, was -concerned with the chief house there—The Flutes, owned by a certain -Sir Henry Trojan, whose son, Robin Trojan, had been, although senior, a -friend at Cambridge. The house was beautiful both in its position and -in the spirit of its owner, and Traill snatched what moments he could to -visit it and to snatch a respite there. - -Had he known, it became in the back of his mind a contrast with the -“lobster red” and the stone corridors of Moffatt's, so that he took its -wide, high rooms and its shining, ordered garden with an added sense of -richness. Had he realized how soon its dignity and peace stood to him -for an “escape,” he would have realized also his growing protest -against his voluntary imprisonment. He went over also on occasions to -Truro—because he liked the walk over the hill, because he liked certain -quaintnesses in the market, in the sharp cobbles of Lemon Street, in the -higher breezes of Kenwyn, because, above all, he liked the dark quiet -and solemnity of the Cathedral. - -The point about both Pendragon and Truro is that it was the kind of life -that he was leading at Moffatt's—the sides of it that are soon to be -given you in detail—that led him to notice these places. Contrast drove -him to a sudden opening of his eyes—contrast and Isabel Desart. He was -growing so very quickly. - -In letters to his mother he spoke of a splendid little wood where one -could sit and watch the sea for hours if there was only time; of the -funny old hill, all brown, with the white road curling up it; of calling -at The Flutes, and “Sir Henry Trojan and Lady Trojan being most awfully -kind,” and the house being quite beautiful, but very little about the -people of the school, and during those first few weeks nothing at all -about Isabel Desart. - -It was not until Mrs. Comber gave her dinner-party that the -preliminaries could be said to be over. - - - - -CHAPTER III—CONCERNS ALL THE WONDERFUL THINGS THAT MAY HAPPEN BETWEEN -SOUP AND DESSERT I. - -WHEN Mrs. Comber asked Vincent Perrin to her dinner-party he was -delighted, although he assumed as great an indifference as possible. -This was at the end of the first week of term, and he had not spoken to -Miss Desart—he had merely bowed to her across the grass and gone indoors -to teach the Lower Third algebra with a beating heart. - -He was also fortunately prevented from seeing that Mrs. Comber was -giving the dinner for Traill. If he had seen that, things might have -been very different; as it was, he thought that that kind, good-natured -woman (he did not always like her) had noticed his attachment—as he -thought most carefully concealed—to Miss Desart and wanted to help him. - -He himself had not noticed the attachment until the holidays. She had -stayed at Moffatt's during part of the summer term, and he had played -tennis with her and talked to her and even walked with her. But it -was not until he had returned to the seclusion of his aged mother and -Buckinghamshire that he realized that for the first time for twenty -years he was in love. - -The discovery affected him in many ways. In the first place it swept -away in the most curious manner all the years that had intervened since -the last affair. He was suddenly young again. He began to regret the -way that he had spent his days. He played tennis (badly but with -enthusiasm). He talked to the men of his Club about “the absurdity of -considering forty-five any age,” and quoted juvenile athletes of eighty. -He gave his mustache a terrible time, wearing things to hold it straight -at night, looking at it often in the glass. - -He told his aged mother (a very old lady with a brown, shriveled face, a -white lace cap, and mittens) vaguely but magnificently about there being -somebody. He hinted that she cared for him and was eager to marry him -as soon as he felt ready to ask her. He talked about “getting a house,” -even about wallpapers and stair-carpets and a nice sunny room for the -old lady. - -She was delighted at first, and then agitated. Who might this new young -person be? Perhaps she would not like her—in any case, it meant taking a -second place. But she idolized and worshiped her son: she knew sides of -him that no one else knew—she saw him as a little, thin, serious hoy in -knickerbockers. - -But this new spirit revived things in Vincent Perrin that he had long -thought dead. He knew, he savagely knew, in his heart of hearts, that he -was a failure; he was determined that the world should never know it; he -covered his knowledge with a multitude of disguises; but now perhaps, if -she cared for him, there might yet be a chance. - -But most of all he was afraid of something—he could never give it a -name—that always crept slowly, increasingly over him as term advanced. -He could not give it a name: that thing made up of a myriad details, of -a myriad vexations; that evil spirit that they all, the masters and the -rest, seemed to feel as the weeks gathered in numbers—the end-of-termy -feelings: strained nerves, irritated tempers, almost, the last week or -two when examinations came, seeing red. - -No—this term it shall be all right. He felt, as he said good-by to his -mother and kissed her, almost an eagerness to get back and prove that -it was all right. After all, Searle had left, and there was Miss Desart. -Supposing she cared for him? He twisted his thin fingers together. Oh! -what things he could do! - -And so he was glad of Mrs. Comber's dinner-party. II. - -Giving a dinner-party was no light, easy thing for Mrs. Comber. So -many wide issues were involved. Not very many dinner-parties were -given during the term, and Mrs. Comber was perfectly aware of all the -conversation that it would give rise to, of all the people that would in -all probability be angry with all the other people because they had -been asked or because they had not. There was, generally, a reason for -a dinner. Some important person had to be asked, some unimportant people -had to be worked off, someone was conscious that there had not been a -dinner-party for a very long time. But on this occasion there was no -reason except that Mrs. Comber had liked the look of young Traill, had -at once thought of Isabel, and had conceived a plan. - -Then, of course, it followed that other people must be asked: Vincent -Perrin, because she didn't like him, but felt that she ought to; the -Dormers, because it was time they were asked; and the elder Miss Madder, -because she was the nicest of the matrons and wouldn't talk quite so -much and quite so spitefully as the others would. - -All this involved danger and destruction as far as the people invited -were concerned. One chance word at dinner—some errant, tiny omission or -commission—and anything might happen: the time might be made miserable -for everybody. - -But there was more immediate peril in it than that. There was in the -first place “ways and means.” How this harassed poor Mrs. Comber no -words can say. She was forced to drive her frail cockle-shell of a -boat between the Scylla of increased bills and the Charybdis of -not-being-smart-enough. - -Were things not right—if there were no meringues, no mushroom savories -(there were rules and regulations about these things), no kummel—well, -the party had better not be given at all. And then, on the other hand, -there was the end of the month, nothing in hand to pay, and Freddie -scowling over his Greek Athletes to such an extent that it wouldn't do -to speak to him. All this was dreadfully difficult, but it revolved -in reality almost entirely around Freddie's stout figure. Every -dinner-party, every party of any kind, was an attempt to win Freddie -back. - -Mrs. Comber never confessed this even to herself, and she was, poor -woman, only too completely aware that its usual result was to drive -Freddie only more completely “in.” Something was sure to happen, -before the evening was over, to annoy him—she would have “such a time -afterwards.” But it always, of course, might be the other way. He might -suddenly see, by some little word or act, how fond, how terribly fond, -she was of him. She had learnt Bridge to please him—he used to like a -game; but the result, although she would not admit it, had simply been -disastrous. - -She was much too muddled a person to be good at cards—she was very, very -bad; she lost sixpences and shillings with the sinking feeling in her -heart that they ought to be going to pay for their boys' clothes. She -plunged desperately to win it all back again—she was known throughout -the neighborhood as the worst player in the world. - -It was indeed this conclusion to the evening that she dreaded most of -all. There were eight of them, so, of course, they would have to play. -Her heart sank because of all the things that might happen. - -But Isabel was, of course, the greatest use in the world. She saved all -kinds of needless extravagances; she always got things where they were -cheap and not bad, instead of getting them expensive and rotten. She -thought of a thousand little things, and she managed the servants—only -two of them, and both ill-tempered. - -Mrs. Comber said nothing to Isabel about young Traill—she did not even -think that she had as yet noticed him. They neither of them said a word -about Mr. Perrin. III. - -Gathered all together in the drawing-room, it was everybody's chief -object to avoid knocking things over. This may be taken metaphorically -as well as literally, but in that ten minutes' prelude everyone had the -hard task of being socially agreeable to people whom they met, as they -met their tables and their chairs, their beds and their hair-brushes, -every day of their lives. - -The curtains; had been closely drawn, but outside the winds were up and -were beating with wild fingers at the panes. They gathered in clusters -about the house, screamed in derision at the dinner-party, chattered -wildly round the buttresses and chimneys of the sedate and solemn -buildings, and then rushed furiously down the gravel paths and away to -the sea. - -The tall lamp had been so placed that its light fell on the peacock-blue -screen and the ormolu clock; it also fell on the enormous shoulders, in -black silk, of Miss Madder, on the thin, bony neck of Mrs. Dormer, and -on the deep red of Mrs. Comber's dress (open at one place at the back, -where it should have been closed, and cut, Mrs. Dormer considered, a -great deal lower than it need have been). - -They were all waiting for Mr. Comber, and Mrs. Comber was trying to -explain to Traill why Freddie was always late, why people at Moffatt's -always liked meringues, and why with a magnificent “heart” hand she had, -only two nights ago, gone hearts with most disastrous results. “They -like them best with jam in them—you shall see to-night if they aren't -good; and there was really no reason at all why they shouldn't have come -off, but we had such bad luck, and I oughtn't to have played my King -when I did; I'm always telling him that he ought to go and dress a -little earlier—but he stays working.” - -Poor Mrs. Comber! She was talking with her eyes all about the room, with -a sickening consciousness that something was wrong with her dress at the -back, with a sure and a certain knowledge that it would be related in -the common room the next morning that dinner was kept half an hour -too long, with a keen misgiving that Mrs. Dormer and Miss Madder had -quarreled furiously only the day before and that she had known nothing -about it. Every now and again she glanced at Isabel to gather comfort -from her, and Isabel's eyes were always ready to give it her. - -Isabel was standing in a dark corner by the window, talking to Vincent -Perrin. Her dress was of dark brown silk, very simply cut, and falling -in one straight piece, save for a golden girdle that bound her waist. -She was standing with that perfect repose that came to her so naturally; -when she moved it was as though that was the only movement possible—her -limbs did not seem to hesitate, as do the limbs of so many people, -before they could decide on the way that they were going to act. Her -brown eyes were smiling at Vincent Perrin in a very friendly way, -and his heart was beating a great deal faster than it had ever beaten -before. - -He had taken very especial pains with his dressing that night. He found -that there were only three shirts in his drawer and that the cuffs of -two of them were badly frayed, and that the stud-hole in the third was -so broken that it would need a very large stud indeed to fill it. He -found a kind of soup-plate at last, but was painfully conscious of its -brazen size and of a little brown smudge on the front of the shirt -near the collar. His suit—it had done duty for a great many years—was -painfully shiny in the back: he had never noticed it before; and there -was a small tear in one sleeve that he knew everyone would see. His -hair, in spite of water, was lanky and uneven; his mustache was raggeder -than ever; his coat fell over his cuffs and shot them into obscurity in -the most distressing manner. - -All these things were new discomforts and distresses—he had never cared -about them before. Then, when Isabel was so kind to him, he felt that -they did not matter; he began in another few minutes to believe that he -was rather well dressed after all; after ten minutes' conversation he -was proud of his appearance. - -Then suddenly his eye fell on Traill, and that moment must be -recorded as the first moment of his dislike. Traill was absurd, quite -absurd—over-dressed in fact. - -His hair was brushed and parted so that you could almost see your face -in brown glossiness. His coat fitted amazingly. There was a wonderful -white waistcoat with pearl buttons, there were wonderful silk socks with -pale blue clocks, there was a splendid even line of white cuff below the -sleeves. - -But Perrin was forced to admit that this smartness was not common; it -was quite natural, as though Traill had always worn clothes like that. -Could it be that Perrin was shabby... not that Traill was smart? - -Perrin dragged his cuffs from their dark hiding-places, then saw that -there was a new frayed piece that had escaped his scissors, and pushed -them back again. - -They all went in to dinner. IV. - -Traill took Isabel in. That was the first time that she had consciously -recognized him—even then it was fleeting and was confined in reality to -a vague approval... and she liked his voice. - -He had never seen her before—that is, he had never detached her from the -vague background of people moving in the distance against the trees and -the buildings; but now at once he fell in love with her. He had been in -love before, and the strange suddenness of the ending of those fugitive -episodes—the way that it had been, in an instant, like a candle blown -out—had led him to fancy that love was always like that; he had -even begun to be a little cynical about it. But he was in no way a -complicated person. It didn't seem to him in the least strange that -yesterday he should have laughed at love and that now he should have -a sense of beauty and strange wonder—something that had suddenly, like -streaming silk or a sweeping, golden sunlight, flooded Mrs. Comber's -dining-room. - -He thought her very grave; he noticed the white, crinkly sound of the -silk of her dress against the table, the broad bands of light in her -hair, and the way that her fingers, so slim and soft and yet so strong, -touched the white cloth; and when she asked him whether he had ever been -a schoolmaster before, the soup suddenly choked him and he could not -answer her, but blushed like a fool, waving a spoon. - -“And you like it!” - -“I love it.” - -“So far. Well, you shall cherish your illusions.” She still looked at -him very gravely. “The boys like you so far.” - -“Ah! they told you!” He was pleased at that. - -“Oh! one soon knows—they are cruelly frank.” - -Suddenly she caught her eyes away from him and looked down the table. -Mrs. Comber was in distress. Everyone had finished their soup a terribly -long time before, and there was no sign of the fish. One of those pauses -that are so cruelly eloquent fell about the table. Freddie Comber was -moodily staring at his plate and paying no attention at all to Dormer, -who was trying to be pleasant. Mrs. Dormer was sitting up stiffly in her -chair and gazing at Landseer's “Dignity and Imprudence” that hung on the -opposite wall as though she had never seen it before. - -It was at moments like this that Mrs. Comber felt as though the room -got up and hit one in the face. She was always terribly conscious of her -dining-room. It was a room, she felt, “with nothing at all in it.” It -had a wallpaper that she hated; she had always intended to have a new -one, but there had never been quite enough money to spend on something -that was not, after all, a necessity. The Landseer picture offended her, -although she could give no reason—perhaps she did not care about dogs. -The sideboard was a dreadfully cheap one, with imitation brass knobs to -the doors of the cupboards, and there were three shelves of dusty and -tattered books that never got cleared away. - -All these things seemed to rise and scream at her. She noticed, too, -with a little pang of dismay that one of the glass dessert dishes was -missing. The set had been one of their wedding-presents—the nicest -present that they had had. Oh! those servants!... She talked with a -brave smile to anybody and everybody, but she watched furtively her -husband's gloomy face. - -But Isabel, having given her a smile, turned back and attacked Mr. -Perrin, feeling, as she always did about him, that she was sorry for -him, that she wanted to be kind to him, and that she would be so glad -when her duty would be over. She also noticed that she wanted to talk to -Traill again. - -Perrin himself had been in a state of torture during dinner that was, -for him, an entirely; new experience. Traill had taken her in.... -His thoughts hung about this fact as bees hang about a tree. -Traill—Traill... with his elegant waistcoat and his beautiful shirt. He -splashed his soup on to his plate. As through a mist people's words came -to him—Miss Madder's fat, cheerful voice: “Oh! I think we shall fill -the West Dormitory this term. There are five small Newsoms—all new boys, -poor dears.”... Comber himself, growling at the end of the table to -Dormer: “It's perfectly absurd. It means that Birk-land has one hour -less than the rest of us—that middle hour ten to eleven...” - -The same old subjects, the same old dinners—but with her he was going to -escape from it all; with her by his side, his ambition would grow wings. - -He saw himself at Eton or Harrow, or a school-inspectorship. Why not? He -was able enough. It only needed something to force him out of the rut. - -But Traill had taken her in.... - -And then she turned and spoke to him, and at once he put up his hand as -though he would stroke his chin, but really it was to cover the stud—the -large soup-plate stud. He stroked his straggling mustache, and used his -official voice. He spoke as he always did when he wanted to create an -impression, as though in the cloistral courts of Cambridge. - -Slow, deliberate, a little majestic... he shot his cuff back into his -sleeve. He spoke of ambition, of the things that a man could do if he -tried, of the things that he could do, if— - -“If?” said Isabel. - -“Oh! well, if... marriage, for instance, was such a help to a man... -one never knew—” He drank furiously and finished at a gulp a glass of -Freddie Comber's very bad claret. - -Young Traill was having a very good time indeed with Miss Madder, and -Isabel turned round to hear what they were talking about. The meringues -had arrived—there was also fruit-salad, but everyone took meringues -although they would have liked, had they dared, to take both—and -conversation was quite lively. - -“I do hope,” said Mrs. Dormer, “that there will be several extra halves -this term.” - -And at once poor Mrs. Comber, who was eagerly congratulating herself on -the success with which, so far, she had escaped danger, burst in: - -“Oh, so do I. You know, they always used to give the boys a half for -every new baby born on the establishment. Well, you and I have done our -duty nobly in that direction, haven't we, Mrs. Dormer?” - -It is impossible that those who are not acquainted with both ladies -should have any conception of the disaster that this simple sentence -involved. - -Mrs. Dormer had a glorious, pugnacious prudery in her stiff, angular -body that rejoiced in any opportunity for display. She hated Mrs. -Comber; she had now an excuse for being offended for weeks. - -She could embroider and discuss to her heart's delight. She saw in the -amusement of Miss Madder, the discomfort of her husband, the dismay of -Miss Desart, the distaste of Mr. Perrin, the wrath of Mr. Comber, ample -confirmation of her exultant prophecies. It does not take much to make a -scandal at Moffatt's—and the propriety of the schoolmaster, the anxious, -eager propriety, exceeds the propriety of every other profession. - -Mrs. Dormer had the game in her hands, and she played the first move by -sitting silently, whitely, protestingly in her chair. - -“I do hope the football will be good this season,” she said at last, -quietly and patiently, to Mr. Comber. - -Mrs. Comber realized at once that she was defeated. She did not know -why she had said a thing like that—she knew that Mrs. Dormer didn't like -such things to be talked about. She smiled and laughed and talked about -gardens and the school bell and Mrs. Moy-Thompson's hat. “It always -rings half a note flat, and it's no use speaking about it; and how she -can bear that colored green when it's the last color she ought to wear, -I can't think; if it weren't for these flies—what do you call them!—the -roses would have done quite well.” But her eyes stared desperately down -the table at Freddie, and she saw that he would not look at her, and she -knew that the dinner had been only one more nail in her coffin. - -There was still, of course, Bridge. V. - -Sitting at the little tables in the tiny drawing-room afterwards, -they were all tremendously—as of course you must be at such small -tables—conscious of each other. - -They had drawn lots, and Mrs. Comber was playing with Dormer against her -husband and Miss Madder at one table, and Mr. Perrin was playing with -Mrs. Dormer against Isabel and young Traill at another. - -It may seem a slight thing, but it was certainly a factor in the whole -situation that Perrin was forced to gaze—over a very small intervening -space—at Traill's immaculate clothes for the rest of the evening. He was -always a bad Bridge player—he thought that he disguised his bad play by -a haughty manner and a false assurance; to-night the confusion of his -thoughts, his incipient dislike for Traill, the bad claret that he had -drunk, the distracting way that Miss Desart held her cards, caused his -play to be something insane. - -Mrs. Dormer disliked intensely losing money, and there seemed every -prospect, if Perrin continued to play like that, of her losing at least -five shillings before the end of the evening. She was convinced that -she had every reason for being angry, and when, at the end of the first -deal, her partner had thrown away a splendid heart hand by refusing to -follow any of her leads, she could not resist a stiff movement in her -chair and a sharp, “Well, Mr. Perrin, I think we ought to have done -better than that.” - -For the first time in his experience his usual assured reply, containing -an implication that it was all his partner's fault, that he had been -at Cambridge for three years, and that he taught Algebra and Euclid six -days a week and therefore ought to know how to play Bridge if anyone -did, failed him. He stared at her miserably, gathered the cards -hurriedly together, and began to shuffle them in a dreadfully confused -way. He knew that Miss Desart must think him a fool, and he wanted her -so terribly badly to think him clever and even brilliant. He was sure -that Traill was laughing at him. He hated the assurance with which -he played. If only he, Perrin, had been playing with Miss Desart what -things he might have done.... His head ached, and his shirt creaked a -little every time he moved, and every time it creaked Mrs. Dormer made a -little stir of disapproval. - -At the other table also things were not as they should be. The drawing -of lots had secured precisely the combination of players that Mrs. -Comber had most wished to avoid. Whatever she did, however she played, -she was lost. If she played badly, her husband, although playing against -her, was infuriated at her stupidity; if she won, he hated being beaten, -As it was, she was playing extremely badly, but was winning because of -the good cards that she held. His brow was growing blacker and blacker. -She held her cards so badly—she never could make them into a fan, and -every now and again one fell with a sharp rattle against the table. - -Also she forgot sometimes that they were playing and broke into -sentences that had to be instantly checked—as, for instance: “Oh, I saw -Mrs.———— I'm so sorry, it 's my lead.” - -“I believe this term.... Oh! I beg your pardon.... What are trumps?” - -Every now and again she gazed at the peacock screen, and the clock, and -the dark corner of the room where there was a little water-color in a -gilt frame, and they gave her comfort. - -The end of the rubber came, and Mrs. Dormer refused to play any more; -they had had magnificent cards, but she had lost three shillings. She -wouldn't look at Mr. Perrin. He stood nervously moving one foot against -the other, pulling his mustache. - -“No, really I'm afraid we must go. You 've finished your rubber, Mrs. -Comber? Yes, we ought to have won.... No, I can't think how it was.” - -“Considering the way my wife's been playing,” said Freddie Comber -brutally, “I think it is just as well to stop.” - -Mrs. Comber chattered with amazing confusion as she helped Mrs. Dormer -to get her cloak. In her eyes something bright was shining, and every -now and again she put up her band to push back some of her black hair -(always on the edge of a perilous descent) with a little, desperate -action. - -“Good night. I'm so glad you've enjoyed it. We meet to-morrow, -of course, although I can't think why they aren't going to play -golf—there's going to be such a storm in an hour or two, isn't -there?—probably because it's football to-morrow afternoon. Yes, -good-by.” Everyone departed. Mr. Perrin stood desperately with something -going up and down in his throat. He had a sentence in his head: “Please, -Miss Desart, do let me see you back to the lodge.” (Mrs. Comber had had -to plant her out there to sleep because there was no room in their own -tiny house.) He meant to say it, he wanted to say it. He clutched his -mortar-board frantically in his band. Then suddenly be beard Traill's -voice: - -“Oh! please, Miss Desart—of course, I'll see you back. Good night, Mrs. -Comber. Thank you so much—I've loved it. Good night, Comber. Night, -Perrin. Look out, Miss Desart, it's dark.” - -Perrin felt his band just touched by Miss Desart's, and her voice, “Good -night, Mr. Perrin.” - -He was left alone on the step. VI. - -I don't suppose that at this stage of things Isabel bad the very -slightest idea of all the emotions that had been in play that evening. -Her bead, as they walked away down the dark gravel path, was full of her -hostess. - -“Poor Mrs. Comber,” she said, and then checked herself as though there -were some disloyalty in talking about her. “I hate Mrs. Dormer,” she -added quietly. - -“I don't like her,” Traill said. “And Dormer's such a jolly little man. -I don't envy; him.” - -“Oh! I don't suppose it's her fault any more than it's anyone's fault -here about anything they do. It's all a case of nerves.” - -There was going to be a storm soon. Already that little preparatory -whisper of the wind, the ominous, frightened rustle of the leaves down -the path, was about them. It was all very dark, with a curious white -light on the horizon, and the dark buildings of the Lower School huddled -against it in sharp, black outline like the broad backs of giants -bending to the soil. - -The scent of trees—vague and uncertain in the daytime, but now clear and -pungent—was borne through the air, and the voice of the sea, rolling in -long, mournful cadences far below the hills, came up to them. The wind's -whisper grew into a furious, strangled cry; little eddies of it swept -about their feet, and cascades of withered leaves fell wildly against -them and were blown, sweeping, streaming away. - -They were silent. Traill was thinking of her voice. It was so grave and -assured and restful. He thought that he could trust her tremendously. -But there was reserve in it too, and he felt, a little hopelessly, that -he might never perhaps get to know her better. - -When they got to the lodge gates, they stopped and stood for a moment -silently. - -Then she said, looking very gravely in front of her at the dark bend of -the road, “There must be such a storm coming up. I feel it all through -me. It was depressing to-night, was n't it?” - -“Just a little,” he said. - -“Anyhow, I'm glad you like it—being here. Mind you always do. I don't -want to be pessimistic when you are just beginning; but—well, you don't -mean to stay here for ever, do you?” - -“I should think not,” he answered eagerly. “Only a term or two at the -most, and then I hope to go back to Clifton, my old school.” - -“That's right—because—really it isn't a very good place to be—this.” - -“Why not?” he asked. - -“It's difficult to explain without maligning people and making things -out worse than they really are.” She paused a moment, and then she went -on: “Do you know, at the bottom of the hill, just before you get into -the village, a melancholy orchard? One always passes it. You will see at -the right time of the year lots of green apples on the trees, but they -never seem to come to anything. And such blossoms in the spring! I 've -seen men working there sometimes. I don't know what it is, but nothing -'s any good there. They call it in the village 'Green Apple Orchard.'... -Well, I've stayed here a great deal, and there's an obvious comparison.” - -“That's cheerful,” he said, laughing. “It would, I suppose, be awful -if one had to stay here for ever like Perrin and Dormer and the rest of -them; but this time next year will see me somewhere better, I hope.” - -“Mind you stick to that,” she said eagerly. “I have a horrible kind -of feeling that they all meant to go very soon; but here they are -still—soured, disappointed. Oh! it doesn't bear thinking of.” - -“One must have ambition,” he answered her confidently. - -She smiled at him, and took his hand, and said good night. - -He went, smiling, to his room. As he climbed into bed, the storm broke -furiously. - - - - -CHAPTER IV—BIRKLAND LOQUITUR I. - -AT the end of his first month young Traill looked back, as it were from -the top of a hill, and thought that it all had been very pleasant. How -much of this pleasantness was due to Isabel (although he had seen her -during that period extremely seldom) and how much of it was due to his -agreeable acceptance of things as they were without any very definite -challenge to them to be different, it is impossible to say. - -The crowded day had of course something to do with it: the fact that -there was never from the first harsh clanging of the bell down the stone -passages at half-past six to the last leap into bed, jumping as it were -from a heap of Latin exercises and the cold challenge of Perrin's voice -as he went round the dormitories turning lights out—never a moment's -pause to think about anything extra at all. But he was in no way a -reflective person. He saw that his own small boys in their untidy, -scrambling kind of way liked him and that the bigger boys of the Upper -Fourth, to whom he taught French twice a week, revered him because of -his football. - -The masters at the Upper School seemed pleasant fellows, although he -might, had he thought about it, have perceived dimly an atmosphere of -unrest and discomfort in their common room. - -With Moy-Thompson as yet he had had no dealings at all. He had been to -supper there once on Sunday night, had been appalled by the dreariness -of the whole affair, the shrivelled ill-temper of Moy-Thompson's parents -(aged about ninety apiece), the inadequacy of the food, the melancholy -inertia of Mrs. Moy-Thompson; but he had had no nearer relations with -him. - -He had, indeed, already begun to perceive that in his own common room -things were not quite as they should be. He was always an exceedingly -equable and easy-tempered person, and he had been surprised at himself -on several occasions for being irritated at very unimportant and -insignificant details. There were, for instance, the incidents of the -bath and the morning papers. Both of these incidents derived their -irritation from their original connection with Perrin, and this might -have led him, had he thought about it, to the discovery that he did not -like Perrin and that Perrin did not like him. But he never dwelt upon -things—he was always thinking of the matter immediately in hand, and -where there was an empty reflective quarter of an hour his eyes were on -Isabel. - -The incident of the bath was, it might have been thought, -inconsiderable. - -Perrin's bedroom was next to Traill's. Opposite their doors, on the -other side of the passage, was a bathroom containing two baths. In this -bathroom Traill always arrived some minutes after Perrin. Try as he -might, he never succeeded in arriving first. Perrin always filled both -baths, one with hot and one with cold, and stood moodily, his naked -body gaunt and bony in the gray light, watching them whilst they filled. -Traill was forced to wait until Perrin had had both his baths before he -could have his. At first it had seemed a small matter. Gradually as -the days passed the irritation grew. There was something in Perrin's -complacent immobility as he stood above his bath that was of itself -annoying. Why should a man wait? One morning they rushed out together. -There were words. - -“I say, Perrin, why not have hot and cold in the same bath?” - -“Really, Traill, it isn't, I should have thought, quite your place....” - -Traill sometimes dreamt early in the morning of French exercises, of the -midday mutton, of Perrin's bony, ugly body watching the bath. If Traill -had thought about it, he would have seen that Perrin did not like him. - -The incident of the morning paper was equally trivial. Dormer always had -breakfast in his own house, and that left therefore three of them. They -clubbed together and provided three newspapers—the Morning Post, the -Daily Mail, and a local affair. It was obvious that the person who came -in last was left with the local paper. Perrin generally came in last, -because he took early prep, in the Upper School, and he expected that -the Morning Post should be left for him. But Traill, as he paid the same -subscription as Perrin, did not see why this should be. Clinton always -took the Daily Mail, and therefore Perrin had to be contented with the -Cornish News. There was at last an argument. Traill refused to give way. -The rest of the meal was eaten in absolute silence. Perrin came no more -to Traill's room for an evening chat—a very small matter. - -But at the end of the first month Traill did not see these things as in -any way ominous. He could keep his boys in order. He liked his game of -football; he was in a glow because he was in love—moreover, he had never -quarreled with anyone in his life. He did not know that he had made any -progress with Isabel. It was very difficult to see her. She came down -sometimes to watch them play football; after Chapel in the evening, he -had walked up the little dark lane with her, the stars above the dark, -cloudy trees, and the leaves a carpet about their feet—and at every -meeting he loved her more. When he had spare hours in the afternoon he -liked to walk to the Brown Wood or down to the sea. Once or twice he -bicycled over to Pendragon and had tea with the Trojans. Sir Henry -Trojan was a man who had appealed to him immensely. In spite of his size -and strength and simplicity, his air of a man who lived out of doors and -read little, he had a tremendous poetic passion for Cornwall. He showed -Traill a great many things that were new to him. He began to feel -a sense of color; he saw the Brown Wood, the twisting, gray-roofed -village, the sweeping, striving sea with fresh vision. He stopped -sometimes in his walks and drew a deep breath at the way that the lights -and colors were hung about him. Of course the contrast of his school -life drove these other things against him—and also his love for Isabel. - -These little things would have no importance were it not that they all -helped to blind him to his true relations with Perrin. He did not think -about Perrin at all; he did not think about his life even in any very -definite way. - -He never analyzed things; he took things and used them. - -And then at the end of that first month Birkland talked in the most -amazing way.... II. - -Traill had been attached to Birkland from the first. The man had -definite personality—aggressive in its influence—and contempt of the -rest of the common room, but they justified it to some extent by their -own terror of his tongue and their eager criticism of him behind his -back. - -He had treated Traill like the rest, but then Traill never noticed it. -He was not afraid of Birkland, he never resented his criticism, and he -appreciated his humor. - -And then suddenly one evening Birkland asked him to come and see him. -His room was untidy—littered with school-books, exercise-books, stacks -of paper to be corrected; but behind this curtain of discomfort there -were signs of other earlier things: some etchings, dusty and uncared -for, sets of Meredith and Pater, some photographs, and a large engraving -of Whistler's portrait of his mother. The latticed window was open, and -from the night outside, blowing into the gusty candles, there were the -scent of decaying leaves and a faint breath of the distant sea. - -Birkland was thin—sticks of legs and arms; a short, wiry mustache; -heavy, overhanging eyebrows; thin, straight, stiff hair turning a little -gray. He gave Traill a drink, watched him fill a pipe; and then, huddled -in his armchair, his legs crossed under him, his eyes full on the open -window and the night sky, he asked Traill questions. - -“And so you like it?” - -“Yes—immensely!” - -“Why?” - -“Well—why not? After all, it gives a fellow what he wants. There's -plenty of exercise—the hours are healthy—the fellows are quite nice -fellows. I like teaching.” - -Traill gave a sigh of satisfaction, and, after all, he had omitted his -principal reason. - -“Yes. How long do you mean to stay here?” - -“Oh! a year, I suppose. Then I ought to get to Clifton.” - -“Yes. You'd better not tell the Head that, though. How do you like the -other men?” - -“Oh, I think they 're very good fellows. Dormer's splendid.” - -“Yes—and Perrin?” - -“Oh! he's all right. He seems to get annoyed pretty easily. As a matter -of fact, I have felt rather irritated once or twice.” - -“Yes—everyone's wanted to cut Perrin's throat some time or other. As a -matter of fact, I shouldn't wonder if it was n't the other way round—one -day.” - -There was a pause, and then Birkland said, “And so you like it.” - -“Yes, of course; don't you?” - -Birkland laughed. There was a long pause. Then Traill said again, rather -uncertainly, “Don't you?” - -He had never thought of Birkland as an unhappy man—as a matter of fact -he never thought of people as being definite kinds of people, and he -scarcely ever read novels. - -Then Birkland spoke: “You had better not ask me that, young man, if you -want an encouraging answer.” - -Then very slowly, after another pause, the words came out: “I'm going -to speak the truth to you to-night for the good and safety of your soul, -and I haven't cared for the good and safety of anyone's soul for—well!—I -should be afraid to say how long. I'm afraid—I don't really care very -much about the safety of yours—but I care enough to speak to you; and -the one thing I say to you is—get out—get away. Fly for your life.” His -voice sank to a whisper. “If you don't, you will die very soon—in a year -perhaps. We are all dead here, and we died a great many years ago.” - -Traill moved uncomfortably in his chair. He smiled across the flickering -candles at Birkland. - -“Oh! I say,” he said, “that's a bit of exaggeration, isn't it? I suppose -one is tired sometimes, of course; but, after all, there are a good many -men in the country who make a pretty good thing out of mastering and are -n't so very miserable.” - -It was evident that he thought that it was all a kind of joke on -Birkland's part. He pulled contentedly at his pipe. - -But the other man went on: “I shouldn't have said this at all if I -hadn't meant it, and if I hadn't got twenty years of experience behind -me to prove what I say. I don't know why I'm bothering you, I'm sure; -but now I've begun I'm going on, and you've got to listen. You can't -say you haven't been given your chance. Have you ever looked round the -common room and seen what kind of men they are?” - -“Of course,” said Traill; “but,” he added modestly, “I'm not observant, -you know. I'm not at all a clever kind of chap.” - -“Well, you would have seen what I'm telling you written in their faces -right enough. Mind you—what I'm saying to you doesn't apply to the -first-class public school. That's a different kind of thing altogether. -I'm talking about places like Moffatt's—places that are trying to be -what they are not—to do what they can't do—to get higher than they can -reach. There are thousands of them all over the country—places where -the men are underpaid, with no prospects, herded together, all of them -hating each other, wanting, perhaps, towards the end of term, to cut -each other's throats. Do you suppose that that is good for the boys they -teach?” - -He paused and relit his pipe, and his voice was, too, measured, but -showing in its tensity his emotion. - -“It's a different thing with the bigger places. There, there is more -room; the men don't live so close together; they are paid better; there -is a chance of getting a house; there is the esprit de corps of the -school... but here, my God!” - -Birkland bent forward, his face white, over the candles. - -“Get out of it, Traill, you fool! You say, in a year's time. Don't I -know that? Do you suppose that I meant to stay here for ever when I -came? But one postpones moving. Another term will be better, or you try -for a thing, fail, and get discouraged... and then suddenly you are too -old—too old at thirty-three—earning two hundred a year... too old! and -liable to be turned out with a week's notice if the Head doesn't like -you—turned out with nothing to go to; and he knows that you are afraid -of him and he has games with you.” - -Traill stared at the little man's burning eyes. How odd of Birkland to -talk like this! - -“You think you will escape, but already the place has its fingers about -you. You will be a different man at the end of the term. You will be -allowed no friends here, only enemies. You think the rest of us like -you. Well, for a moment perhaps, but only for a moment. Soon something -will come... already you dislike Perrin. You must not be friends with -the Head, because then we shall think that you are spying on us. You -must not be friends with us, because then the Head will hear of it and -will immediately hate you because he will think that you are conspiring -against him. You must not be friends with the boys, because then we -shall all hate you and they will despise you. You will be quite alone. -You think that you are going to teach with freshness and interest—you -are full of eager plans, new ideas. Every plan, every idea, will -be immediately killed. You must not have them—they are not good for -examinations—you are trying to show that you are superior.” - -Birkland paused. Traill moved uneasily in his chair. - -“Wait! You must hear me out. It all goes deeper than these things. It -is murder—self-murder. You are going to kill—you have got to kill—every -fine thought, every hope, that you possess. You will be laughed at for -your ambitions, your desires. You will not even be allowed any fine -vices. You must never go anywhere, because you are neglecting your -work. You have no time. Here we are—fifteen men—all hating each other, -loathing everything that the other man does—the way he eats, the way -he moves, the way he teaches. We sleep next door to each other, we eat -together, we meet all day until late at night—hating each other.” - -“After all,” said Traill, still smiling, “it is only a month or two, and -there are holidays.” - -“If term lasted another week or two,” went on Birkland quietly, “murder -would be committed. The holidays come, and you go out into the world to -find that you are different from all other men—to find that they know -that you are different. You are patronizing, narrow, egotistic. You -realize it slowly; you see them shunning you—and then back you go again. -God knows, they should not hate us—these others! they should pity us. -If you marry, see what it is—look at Mrs. Dormer, Mrs. Comber, Mrs. -Moy-Thompson. Look at their husbands, their life. There is marriage—no -money, no prospects, perhaps in the end starvation! And gradually there -creeps over you a dreadful and horrible inertia: you do not care—you do -not think—you are a ghost. If one of us dies, we do not mind—we do not -think about it. Only, towards the end of the term, when the examinations -come, there creeps about the place a new devil. All our nerve is gone; -our hatred of each other begins to be active. It is the end-of-termy -devil.... Another week or two, and there is no knowing what we might do. -We are all tired, horribly tired. Be careful then what you do and what -you say.” - -“My word!” said Traill, filling his pipe, “what a horrible picture of -things! You must be out of sorts. Why, it's hysteria!” - -Birkland had crawled back into his chair again. He puffed at his pipe. - -“Oh! of course you don't see it!” he said. “After all, why should you? -But it's true, every word of it. Oh! I'm resigned enough now. Besides, -it's the beginning of the term. I'm inclined to think it's untrue, -myself, just now. Wait and see. Watch White after he's had an interview -with the Head—see Perrin and Comber together later on—study Mrs. Comber. -But don't you bother. You won't listen to me—why should you? Only, in -ten years' time you 'll remember.” - -After that they talked of other things. Birkland was rather amusing in -his sharp, caustic way. - -“I say,” said Traill as he stood by the door on the way out, “that was -all rot; was n't it?” - -“What was?” asked Birkland. - -“Why, about the place—this place.” - -“All rot!” said Birkland gravely. III. - -But of course one dismisses these things very soon—especially, and -immediately, if the person in question is Archie Traill. - -Why think about a problematic and depressing forty? Take these men -that Birkland so gloomily points to as disappointing and unsatisfactory -exceptions. Life is like that. There are always the riders who collapse -into ditches and sit there mumbling, wishing for the company, down in -the dirt and the grime, of their fellow-horsemen. - -Meanwhile there is this fine autumn weather. Birkland remains a crabbed -shadow; life is sharp, pungent—formed with faint blue skies, dim and -shining like clear glass with a hard yellow sun stuck like a tethered -balloon between saucer-clouds. - -Archie Traill, on a free afternoon—an early frost had made the ground -too hard for football—in the week after that Birkland evening, stood in -the village street as the church clock struck half-past three, and he -thanked God for a half-holiday. - -The air was so still that the distant mining stamps and the breaking sea -had it for the plain of their unceasing war, cannon against cannon, -and the withdrawing rattle of their rival shot echoing against the blue -horizon and the stiff side of the Brown Hill. The village cobbles shone -and glittered; the gray roofs lay like carpets spread to dry. The brown -church tower seemed to sway—so motionless was the rest of the world—with -the clatter of its chiming clocks. - -Suddenly Isabel Desart turned the corner. “Good afternoon, Mr. Traill,” -and the clasp of her hand was strong and clean as all the rest of her -movements. She smiled at him as she always smiled, a little ironically -and also a little seriously, as though she found the world a strange -place, ought to think it a solemn one, but couldn't help finding it -funny. - -Three old women, their skirts kilted about them, their eyes fixed on -vacancy, flung their voices into the silence like balls against a board. - -“And she only sixteen—what a size!” - -“Only sixteen!—to think of it!” - -“With her great legs and all!” - -“Only sixteen...!” - -The man and woman moved up the road together. She was usually so full -of things to say that her silence surprised him. The thought that his -presence could possibly be agitating to her, and therefore responsible, -drove the blood to his head, and then he rebuked himself for a -presumptuous fool. But if he had spoken, he would have had to tell her -that he loved her—and it was n't time yet. - -But at last he broke against the silence very quietly. “We must talk, -one of us—it is so wonderfully quiet that it's alarming.” - -She turned round to him, and suddenly, so that he stopped in the road -and looked at her, she put her hand on his arm. - -“We are both so frightfully young,” she said. - -“Why, yes,” he said, laughing at her; “but why not?” - -“Why, for the things that we 'll have to do. You for the boys, and I for -my poor Mrs. Comber. I had thought when I saw you first that you were -going to be old enough, but I don't think you are.” - -“I know that I can't—” he began. - -“Oh! it isn't for anything that you can't do!” she broke in. “It's -just because you don't see it—why should you? You 're too much in the -middle—I suppose it's only outsiders who can really understand. But I -get so depressed sometimes with it all that I think that I will leave it -and go back to London and never come here again. One doesn't seem to -be any use—no use at all. And it all seems worse in the autumn somehow. -Poor Mr. Traill! I always happen to be gloomy when you catch me, and I'm -not gloomy really in the least.” - -“But what is it all about? And don't go to London, please. You mustn't -think of it.” - -He was so much in earnest that she turned and looked at him. “Why?” she -said gravely. “Do you like my being here?” And then, before he could say -anything, she added, reflectively, “Well, that's one, at any rate. - -“I have to go in here,” she said, stopping before a gate with a drive -behind it. “Tea, you understand.” Then she gave him her hand. “Although -you don't in the least know what I mean, you 're a help,” she said; “and -I shall look across the chapel floor in the evening and know that I have -a friend. Sometimes when I'm down here—out of it—and everything's so -fresh and clear, like to-night, I think that it can't be true—the things -that go on. Oh! I'm so sorry for them, all of them.” She went through -the gate and looked back at him. “But I don't want to have to be sorry -for you as well—please,” she added, and was lost in the trees. - -But he, in his triumphant, buoyant sensation of things having moved -a step—or even a good many steps further—was ready that she should be -sorry or have any sensation whatever so long as she thought of him. Her -claiming Chapel-time as a meeting-ground made that somewhat irritating -and so swiftly recurrent a ceremonial a thrice-blessed moment to which -he might eagerly look forward throughout the day. But it is not my -intention to give you all his symptoms—his passion is in no way -the chief point; it was simply one of the things that helped in the -culminating issue. - -Isabel, meanwhile, found that throughout the tea-party her little -conversation with Traill ran in her head. It was not a very interesting -tea-party—three old ladies who regarded her as something very dangerous -and alarming and offered her cake as though they expected it to turn -into a bomb in her hands. She looked at their comfortable fire, their -dark, cozy drawing-room, their caps and shawls, with the eye of someone -whose passage through that country was very swift and whose language -was not theirs. The dancing glow of the firelight, the tinkle of -the tea-things, the softness of the rugs at her feet, were not the -expression of her idea of life, and she flung them away from her and -thought of Moffatt's and the night outside. Throughout their soft and -courteous speech her mind was with Traill. He had said, “Don't go to -London, please,” and he had meant it—it was almost as though he had -appealed to her from a sudden vision that he had of all that was in -front of him. She knew, of course—she had seen it happen so very often -before; and perceived that for this man, too, with his bright, eager -challenge of life, his absurdly young notion of the way that things -would be certain to be simple when they were never simple at all, grim, -baffling disappointment was at hand. To her those red walls of Moffatt's -were alive, moving—crushing, as in some story that she had once read, -relentlessly the victims that were hidden within. Perhaps he had -suddenly seen or understood something of that—there had come to him -some forewarning. Her cheek reddened at the thought and her breath came -quickly. She liked him—she had liked him from the first—she liked him -very much; and if he wanted her to help him, she would do all that she -could. She said good-by to the three old ladies and left them behind her -with a little humorous laugh. It was right that there should be three -old ladies living like that, so cozily and comfortably, with their fires -and their carpets, at the very foot of Moffatt's. How little people -realized! These old ladies with their park gates and long drive! How -they would roll up in their carriage!... and the Moffatt's! - -It was dark, and the long hill that stretched above her was black and -ominous. The lights of Moffatt's showed, to the right at the top, and -the darker shape of its buildings cut the lighter gray of the sky. There -was a lamp-post at the corner of the road, and as she closed the gates -behind her with a clang she heard a voice say, “Good evening, Miss -Desart,” and saw that Mr. Perrin was at her side. Mr. Perrin always made -her feel nervous, and now, in the dark, she instinctively shrank back, -but it was only for an instant, and she was immediately ashamed of -her fears. She could not see his face, but she fancied that his voice -trembled—-he seemed troubled about something; and then that feeling of -pity that she had for him before came upon her again, and her voice was -softer and more tender. - -“It was—um—a great piece of good fortune for me that I should be passing -just when you were coming out—a great piece of good fortune.” - -He seemed very nervous. - -“And for me too,” she said; “this hill grows extraordinarily dark, and I -stayed on longer than I ought to have done. Have you been paying calls, -too?” - -“Oh, no! I—um—never pay calls—merely a stroll down to the village to buy -some tobacco—merely that—nothing more... yes, merely that... simply some -tobacco.” - -She felt his agitation, and wished that the top of the hill might -be reached as speedily as possible, but she fancied a little that he -lingered. She hastened her steps. - -“I'm not sure that it is n't raining—I felt a drop just now, I -thought—and it was such a lovely afternoon.” - -“Oh, no, I assure you—” and then he suddenly stopped. - -She was frightened—quite unreasonably. She wanted to reach the warmth -and light of Mrs. Comber's drawing-room as soon as possible and escape -from this strange, awkward man. - -She broke the silence. “How is Mr. Traill getting on at the Lower -School? I hope you all like him. The boys seem to have taken to him; but -then, of course, his football is a quick road to favor.” - -Mr. Perrin seemed to be swallowing his teeth. He coughed and choked. -“Ah, well, yes, Traill—young, of course, young, and one can only learn -by experience. Perhaps just a little inclined to be cock-sure—dangerous -thing to be too certain—a fault of youth, of course.” - -“Oh, I've found him,” said Isabel, “very modest and pleasant. Of course, -I haven't seen very much of him, but I must say that what I 've seen of -him I've liked.” - -They were nearly at the top of the hill; the big black gates cut the -horizon. - -In the light of the lamps at the corner of the road Isabel saw Mr. -Perrin's face. It looked very white under the gaslight, and he was -clenching and unclenching his hands. His cap was on one side, his tie -had risen at the back above his collar... his eyes were looking into -hers and beseeching her like the eyes of a dumb animal. - -They had come to the gates. - -“Miss Desart...” - -They both came to a halt in the road. - -“Yes?” she said, smiling at him. - -“I want you to... I'd be awfully glad one day if...” - -He stopped again desperately. - -“What can I do?” she said, still smiling at him. He looked so odd, -standing there in the dark, silent road... his hands restless. His eyes -had moved from her face and were gazing up the road. - -“I would be so glad if—one day—so flattered if—you would—will—um—come -for a walk, one day.” He stopped with a jerk. - -She moved through the gate and looked back at him before turning up the -path to the house. - -“Why, of course, Mr. Perrin, I shall be delighted. Good night.” - -He stood looking after her. - - - - -CHAPTER V—A GAME OF FOOTBALL AND A DANCE IN PENDRAGON HAVE THEIR PART IN -THE SCHEME OF THINGS I. - -LATER there is Mr. Perrin heavily—with the midday mutton close about his -head—surveying, in his dingy and tattered sitting-room, four small boys -who gaze at him with staring eyes and jumping throats. - -It is a piece of English poetry that has brought them, miserably, by the -ears—Browning's “Patriot,” one verse a week, to be said every Tuesday -morning first hour, and to be forgotten eagerly, completely forgotten, -every Tuesday morning second hour. - - -I go in the rain and, more than needs - -The rope—the rope—the rope— - - -Johnson Minor gazed miserably at his companions and, finding no help in -man, but only a jesting glory at his misfortunes, dizzily, despairingly, -to the top row of Mr. Perrin's bookcase, where Advanced Algebra and -Mensuration hold perpetual war and rivalry. - -It was a desperate affair altogether, because it was the afternoon of a -football match—a great football match against a mighty Truro team,—and -already the gathering multitude in the field below flung a derisive -murmur at the dusty panes. - -But Mr. Perrin was motionless. He offered no assistance, he suggested -no remedy, he merely tapped with his bone paper-knife on the red -tablecloth—a tap that showed Johnson Minor once and for all that his -case was hopeless: - - -A rope—a rope that— - - -Johnson Minor, with hanging head and red eyes, passed out to write it, -the whole poem, fifty times before lock-up. He would miss the match. -Outside, in the passage, he suddenly remembered the whole verse clearly, -perfectly; but it was too late. - -At last one prisoner only remained—Garden Minimus, a cheerful, untidy -person aged ten, in enormous boots and no kind of parting to his hair. - -Garden Minimus was the boy whom Perrin liked best in the whole -school—had liked him best for the last two years. When things were -really black, when headaches were violent, and when unpopularity seemed -to hang about him in a dense, thick cloud, there was always Garden -Minimus. He flattered himself that the boy was not aware of this -partiality; but the boy, he was sure, liked him. He treated him always -with an elaborate irony that the boy seemed to understand in some -curious way. Garden would stand, with his head on one side like a rather -intelligent small dog, and although he rarely said anything more than -“Yes, sir,” or “No, sir,” Perrin felt that he grasped the situation. - -On this afternoon it was plain that Garden Minimus did not know a word -of “The Patriot,” and had made no attempt whatever to learn it. - -Mr. Perrin looked at him with a slow smile. “I'm afraid, friend Garden,” -he said, “that it will devolve upon your lordship—hum—ha—that you should -write this poem of the noble Mr. Robert Browning's no less than fifty -times. I grieve—I sympathize—I am your humble servant; but the law -commands.” - -Garden Minimus brushed Mr. Perrin's fine periods aside, and said, with -a most engaging smile, “There's a most ripping footer match this -afternoon, sir.” - -“Fool though I am,” said Mr. Perrin, “I have nevertheless observed that -there is, as you say, a footer match. Nevertheless, I am afraid 'The -Patriot' calls you, friend Garden.” - -“It would be an awful pity,” said Garden reflectively, without paying -the slightest attention to Mr. Perrin, “to miss a decent game like -that.” - -Suddenly Mr. Perrin was irritated. He snapped out sharply, “All right, -Garden; that will do. You 'll get it a hundred times if you aren't -careful!” - -Garden, realizing his defeat, moved slowly out of the room, his forehead -lowering. Outside the door he muttered, “Silly, pompous ass!” - -Mr. Perrin remained discontented, unhappy. He was continually attempting -to make the boys fond of him and at the same time to retain his dignity. -He never succeeded in this, because so definite an attempt on his part -immediately precluded any capitulation on theirs. They thought he was a -fool to try, and they resented his airs. - -He was really fond of Garden Minimus, he thought, as he sat with his -head between his arms in his dingy, dusty room. The dust wove patterns -above his head in the pale, dim sunlight. He must go down and watch the -football. He must get out amongst people, because he had a sickening -fear that for the first time that term his headaches were coming back to -him. He had avoided them. Miss Desart had been there instead, and every -time that she spoke to him he had felt well and happy. - -She had spoken to him a good many times lately, and he now was sure that -she was attracted to him. Soon he would ask her to go with him for -a walk... then there would be more walks... then.... He wrote to his -mother that the thing was practically arranged. - -As for that puppy, Traill—well, he 'd kept him in his place, thank -Heaven. As the days increased, Perrin had grown to dislike him more -and more—conceited, insufferable, giving himself such airs. When he met -anyone who gave himself airs, Perrin had a curious habit of referring -things back to his old mother and seeing her insulted. He could see the -patronizing way that Traill would speak to her. This always made him -furiously angry when he thought of it. But being furiously angry only -brought on his headaches again. Oh! there were things to be done! He -looked around his room and saw a pile of mathematical papers, some -English essays. His eye crossed to the mantelpiece, and he saw there a -silly china figure, painted in red and yellow, of an old gentleman in a -cocked hat. This, for no reason that he could explain, always irritated -him. The old gentleman had so confident and knowing a smile. He had -always meant to get rid of it, but for some reason or other he never -could destroy it. - -Oh! he must get out into the air! His head was very had. - -As he left his room, there was a vague fear, somewhere, at his heart. - -The game had begun. The ropes on either side were thickly lined with a -dark crowd of boys, and a long wailing shout, “Scho-o-l!” rose and -fell without ceasing. Perrin, in his shabby greatcoat, watched with a -superior but interested air. There was nothing in the world that excited -him more, but he had never been able to play himself and so he affected -to despise it. - -In front of him, pressed against the rope, were three small boys of -his own house, each boy holding a paper bag from which he drew fat and -sticky green and brown sweets. They had not noticed him. They divided -their attention between their neighbors, their sweets, and the game. - -“Shut up, Huggins, you silly fool! What are you shoving for?” - -“Can't help it—Grey's barging—Oh! I say, run it, Morton. That's it! Pick -it up—dodge him, man! Oh, hang it!” - -“I say, swop one of those brown things for one of mine—Thanks! Where's -Garden, you chaps?” - -“Swotting up for Old Pompous.” - -“Oh! what rot! I'm blowed if I would. I thought Pompous was rather sweet -on Garden.” - -“So he is—but Garden can't stand him.” - -“No wonder—blithering ass, with his long words!” - -“Oh! I say—they 've got it! There's Morton off again—Oh! he's going! -Well run, my word! He's in! No, he isn't! The back's got him! No, he -hasn't! Hurray! Try! Good old Morton!” - -Amongst the commotion that followed the happy event Perrin moved to a -less crowded portion of the people. He was accustomed to hearing himself -spoken of with but little respect by those who, when he was present, -trembled before him. He always told himself that all the members of the -staff were in the same box; but this afternoon it hurt—it hurt badly. - -Little beasts! He'd punish them! As he moved along behind the ranks of -boys—each boy with his friend—the familiar mantle of loneliness, that he -had known so long, swept him in its somber folds. He saw Comber in the -distance, turned to avoid him, and suddenly confronted Mrs. Comber and -Miss Desart. - -He pulled himself up with a sudden effort of one who, feeling at his -very worst, has immediately to appear at his very best, and the struggle -was glaring to the observer, in the nervous clutching of the buttons of -his coat and his uneasy, agitated laugh. - -Mrs. Comber was always at her noisiest and most affable with Mr. Perrin, -because she didn't like him, and she always tried to cover that dislike -with an increased amiability. Isabel stood rather gravely by and watched -the game. - -“We appear to be winning,” said Perrin, glaring as he spoke at three -small hoys who had looked up at the sound of his voice. “We appear—um—to -be winning. Morton has secured a try.” - -“Yes, I'm so glad,” gasped Mrs. Comber—she was out of breath. “Morton's -a nice boy—we had him once in our house, and I do hope the school will -win, because it's so nice for everybody's tempers, and the boys like -it—and there's that nice Mr. Traill playing and running about most -beautifully.” - -Perrin started. He hadn't noticed that Traill was playing. He looked -at Isabel and saw that she was watching the game with deep attention. -Traill was certainly in his element. The ball came suddenly in his -direction. He had it in his hands and was off with it. There was a -breathless, hushed pause; then, as he sped along, just inside the -touch-line, swerved past his opposing three-quarter to the center of the -field, and flew for the goal, the silence broke into a roar. Miss Desart -gave a long-drawn “Oh!” Mrs. Comber a little scream, Mr. Perrin moodily -stroked his mustache. - -The back was outwitted, and came floundering to the ground—a very pretty -try. - -“Good old Traillers!” - -“That's something like!” - -“Isn't he spiffing?”—and then Miss Desart's, “Oh! that was splendid!” -beat about Mr. Perrin's poor head, that was aching horribly. - -“That nice Mr. Traill! I do like to see people run like that. Oh! it's -half-time.” - -Mrs. Comber caught Mr. Perrin slowly into her vision again and prepared -once more to be volubly pleasant. - -But Mr. Perrin had had enough. On the opposite side of the field, on the -top of the hill against the china white of the autumn sky, were three -trees, gnarled, bent, gaunt, like three old men. Quite alone they -stood and watched, impersonally and gravely, the game. Mr. Perrin felt -suddenly as though he, too, were really one of them. Behind them sheets -of white light, falling from the hidden sun, flooded the long, brown -fields. - -Cold pale blue was reflected against the gray stodgy clouds. Mr. Perrin -went back slowly to his room. The dusty untidiness of it closed -about him. He sat down to his pile of English essays on “Town and -Country—Which is the best to live in?” with a confused sense of running -men, lights across the hills, the china red and black man on the -mantelpiece, and Miss Desart's shining eyes. - -At five o'clock, with a heavy scowl, Garden Minimus presented “The -Patriot” neatly written fifty times. II. - -It was about this time that Archie Traill accepted an invitation to a -dance at Sir Henry Trojan's. It was to be only a small dance, and it was -to be over by twelve. “Do let us,” Lady Trojan wrote, “put you up. You -will be able to see more of Robin, who is coming down for the night from -London. He will want to see you so badly.” Traill wrote back, accepting -the dance, but explaining that he must return on the same evening, -quoting as his imperative necessity early morning preparation. - -It was Clinton's evening on duty, and therefore there was no very -obvious necessity to say anything more about it; but Traill, in order -to free himself from any further danger, thought that he would go and -receive definite permission from Moy-Thompson. He had not as yet been to -a single dinner or evening party outside the school, and he had noticed -that the rest of the staff never went out at all, nor had apparently -any intention of doing so. He went round at twelve o'clock after morning -school to Moy-Thompson's study, knocked on the door, and entered. He was -conscious at once of trouble in the air. He saw that White, the nervous -man who took the Classical Fifth, was standing by Thompson's table. He -moved back as though he would leave the room; but the headmaster called -to him, “Ah! Traill, don't go. I shall be ready in a moment.” - -Then Traill noticed several things. He noticed, first, that -Moy-Thompson's garden beyond the window was colored a brilliant brown in -the sun; he noticed that Moy-Thompson's study was dark and black, like -a prison; he noticed that White's long hatchet-face was yellow in the -half-light; he noticed that both White's hands, hanging straight at -his side, were tightly clenched, and that his thin legs, spread widely -apart, were drawn tight beneath his trousers so that the cloth flapped a -little against his thin calves; he noticed that Moy-Thompson's long gray -beard swept the table and that his fingers tapped the wood every now -and again with the sound of peas rattling on a plate; he noticed that -Moy-Thompson was smiling. - -Moy-Thompson said, “But I think I told you that Maurice was on no -account to have an exeat.” - -White's voice came from a far, hesitating distance: “Yes, I know. But -his father was only to be in London for an hour, and he has not seen his -son for a year, and I thought that under the circumstances—” - -“That does not alter the fact that I had expressed a wish that he should -not have an exeat.” - -“No—but I thought that if you knew all the circumstances of the case, -you would not object.” - -“What is your position here? Are you here to consider my wishes? What -are you paid to do?” - -White made no answer. - -“Of course if you are dissatisfied with the condition of things here, -you have only to say so. It would be doubtless possible to fill your -place.” - -“No,”—White's voice was very low—“I have no complaint. I am sorry if—” - -“You must remember your position here. I have yet to discover any paid -position that enables you to indulge your own particular fancies when -you please. Doubtless you are better informed.” - -Traill could endure it no longer. He was so angry that the blood had -rushed to his head, and his face was scarlet. White had flung one glance -at him, as though to beseech him to go away, and he moved to the door; -but again Moy-Thompson said, “Just a moment, Traill.” - -He was so angry that, on the impulse of the moment, he had almost -stepped across the room and flung in his resignation. White's long -haggard figure was torture; it was cruelty, devilish cruelty, laughing -with them there in the room. - -The man at the table was playing with them as a cat does with a mouse, -shaming one of them before the younger man, as though he had stripped -him naked and driven him so into the playing-fields outside, forcing the -other to listen, brutally, intolerably, against his will. - -The room seemed full of pain—it seemed to cross and recross in waves. -White's head bent down.... At last he passed with lowered eyes out -through the door. - -Traill could not speak; without another word, he turned and followed -him. Outside the door in the darkened passage he suddenly held out his -hand and caught White's. White held his for an instant; suddenly, with a -frightened, startled look, he stepped away. III. - -When the evening of the dance arrived, Traill noticed that he was glad -to get away. Term had now lasted for six weeks, and in another week it -would be half-term. He was a little tired; he found it more difficult -to get up in the morning. Little things mattered a great deal—he now -emphatically disliked Perrin more than he had ever disliked anyone in -his life before; there was even annoyance in the mere sight of his long, -lean, untidy figure, in the sound of his assured, supercilious voice, in -the sense of his arrogance. - -They never spoke to each other if they could help it; meals were -extremely disagreeable. - -He found, too, that love did not mingle properly with school work. He -was always going into day-dreams when he should have been teaching his -form. He tried to keep the sea and the wood and the funny man that he -had met there and Isabel apart from his work; but they came skipping -in—and at night he dreamt—he was almost sure that she loved him.... -Whenever they met now they were very silent. - -He escaped whilst they were all in chapel. He lit his bicycle-lamp, -wrapped a long, thin coat about him, and escaped. It had been a cold, -fine day. The sun was just setting over the sea as he spun down the -hard, white road. - -As he flew between the dark, sweet-scented hedges, as he felt the wind -in his ears and about his face, as the smell, salt and sharp, of the sea -came to him, it was strange to find how the cares and troubles of those -brown buildings on the hill fled away from him. He was already his old -self; he sang to himself. - -A faint red glow hovered over the dark, heaving water; the trees stood -black on the horizon, and the long, low lines of shadow, white and gray, -stole about the road as the evening sky slowly settled, with a little -sighing of the wind, into the colors that it would bear during the -night. The lights of the little village behind him made a red cluster -against the dark shoulder of the Brown Hill. - -He sang aloud. - -It was a most enjoyable dance; he had never enjoyed a dance so much -before. He realized that he, was looking on the past six weeks as -imprisonment; he also noticed that when he told his partners that he -was a schoolmaster they stared at him a little apprehensively. It was -delightful to see Robin Trojan again. They walked into the garden -and strolled about the paths together; he was much improved since -the Cambridge days, Traill thought—less self-assured and with wider -interests. And then Sir Henry Trojan always gave Traill a broader -feeling of life—sanity and health and strength—and lie had an admirable -sense of humor. - -And then it was over, and Traill was speeding back over the hill again. -He thought of Isabel all the way back. He fancied that she was with him -in the dark. The night was so black that he could only see the little -round white circle that his lamp flung on the road in front of him. The -hedges, like black, bulging pillows, closed him in. - -He seemed to be back in no time. He heard the school clock strike one. -He took the Yale key and fitted it into the door; it would not move; he -tugged, pulled it out, forced it in again, and pushed it. With a click -it broke in half. - -He looked at the big, black, silent buildings in despair—supposing he -had to stay out all night. He would die rather than ring. - -He went round to the other side of the building and looked up. Then he -saw that the dining-room windows were not very high and that he might -climb. He caught on to a buttress and pulled himself up; then another -hand on the window-sill drew him level. - -He found to his delight that the window was not latched. He pushed it -up, and then, with one hasty look into the dark cavern beneath him, -jumped. He was saluted on his descent with a noise as though all the -crockery in the world had fallen about his ears. The sharp collapse of -it seemed to go rushing through the silent house for hours; he knew that -he had cut his hand and had bruised his knee. - -For a moment he was stunned; then slowly he realized what he had done: -the tables were laid for the next morning's breakfast, and he had jumped -down straight amongst the cups and plates. - -He sat up on the floor and began, with his head aching, to staunch the -blood that came from the cut. He saw, as in a dream, the door open. -Someone was standing there, in a nightshirt, holding a candle; it was -Perrin. - -“Who's there? What's that?” Perrin held a poker in his other hand. - -Traill got up slowly from the floor. “It is I—Traill,” he stammered. He -was still feeling stunned. - -Perrin held the candle a little closer. “Oh, is it you, Traill?” - -“Yes, I have been out. I fell on to the plates and things. I am sorry.” - -“You made a great noise.” Perrin was speaking very slowly. “You woke me -up.” - -“Yes; I am most awfully sorry.” - -Traill moved towards the door. Perrin still stood there, holding his -candle, his nightshirt flapping about his legs. He did not seem inclined -to move. - -“You made a great noise. It is one o'clock.” He said it as though he -were Robespierre condemning Louis XVI to execution. - -“Yes, I know. I'm dreadfully sorry. I broke my key.” - -Still Perrin did not move. “What are you doing out so late?” he said at -last, slowly. - -What the devil had it to do with Perrin! - -“I did n't know that this was a girls' school,” Traill said at last, -sarcastically. His head was aching, his knee hurt, he was tired, and in -a very bad temper. - -Perrin moved from the door. “It's struck one—coming in like this!” - -The candle flung a most ridiculous shadow of him on the wall—a huge, -gigantic head with hair sticking out of it like spears. - -Because he was tired and rather hysterical, this suddenly amused Traill -enormously. He hurst into a peal of laughter. - -“I can't help it,” he said, shaking; “you look so funny, so frightfully -odd!” - -Perrin said nothing. He looked at him for a moment. He had been -disturbed in his sleep; he had every reason to be very angry. But he -said nothing at all. He moved slowly down the passage. - -Traill followed him in silence; he was suddenly frightened. - - - - -CHAPTER VI—SÆVA INDIGNATIO I. - -TO Perrin, in his sleep that night there came, accompanied with roaring -wind and crashing sea, a dream of the little man in red and black china -that lived on the mantelpiece. He came tip-tap across the floor to him -and bent over the bed and whispered in his ear. He had grown in his -transit and was large in the leg and trailed behind him a long black -gown, and he troubled Mr. Perrin by buzzing like a wasp. - -He was urging Perrin to do something, but it was hard to distinguish the -words because of the booming of the sea. The cold light of early morning -and, an hour later, the harsh clang of the bell down the stone passages, -restored the china gentleman once more to the mantelpiece; but the -discovery that there had been a storm in the night only seemed to -confirm the gentleman's appearance. Besides, he was no new thing—he had -climbed down from his perch on other occasions. - -Perrin and Traill exchanged no word during breakfast. II. - -Garden Minimus played his small part in the whole affair by being sulky -and obstinate during the whole of first hour. It was a game that he was -perfectly accustomed to playing, and he knew every move from the opening -gambit of “saying things under your breath that looked bad, but couldn't -possibly be heard,” to the triumphant checkmate of a studied, sarcastic -politeness that was most unusual and hinted at danger. - -Perrin had slept, as we have seen, exceedingly badly, and the old -hallucination that twenty boys were in reality five hundred crept over -him. They sat in stupid, irritated rows at hard wooden desks soiled with -ink. Beyond the drab windows the wind howled, and the dry leaves blew -against the panes. - -His temper rose as the hour advanced. The fifth proposition of the -first book of Euclid was scarcely calculated to show dull boys at their -brightest and best, and Perrin found that, by changing the letters of -the figure on the board, the form knew nothing about it at all. - -He proceeded, as was his way, to secure the dullest, fattest, and -heaviest boy (a youngster with spectacles and a protruding chin, called -Somerset-Walpole) and to make merry at his expense. Somerset-Walpole—his -fingers exuded ink, his coat whitewash, and his hair dust—stood with his -mouth open and his brow wrinkled, and a vague wonder as to why, when he -ought to be thinking about Euclid, his mind would invariably wander to -the bristly hairs at the back of Mr. Perrin's neck and the silly leaves -dancing about outside. - -Mr. Perrin played heavily with him for about quarter of an hour (the -form laughing nervously at his ironical sallies), and then sent the -youngster back, crying, to his seat; the boy spent the rest of the hour -in drawing hideous people with noses like pens and tiny legs, and then -smudging them out with his fingers. - -Then Perrin had Garden Minimus in his hands. The boy's sulking, frowning -face drove him to fury. He suddenly felt (as though it had leapt wildly -from some dark corner on to his shoulder) the Cat of Cruelty purring at -his ear. It was an animal whose whispers he heard, as a rule, only when -the term was well advanced; now it was upon him. He knew, suddenly, that -he would like to take Garden Minimus's ears in his hands and twist them -back further and further until they cracked. He would like to take his -little fat arms and close his fingers about them and pinch them until -they were blue. He would like to take the sharp, white knuckles and beat -them with a ruler. Garden had chubby cheeks and bright blue eyes. Perrin -began to pull, very gently, his hair. Garden wriggled a little. - -“Take the triangle A B C,” he began, and stopped. Perrin began to pinch -the back of his neck. - -“You have said that six times now, Garden. Say it again, because I am -sure the rest of the form are immensely interested. Really, I grieve -to think of the amount of time that you must have spent over your -preparation last night. You 'll be overdoing it if you go on like this, -you know—you will, really. You mustn't work so hard. Meanwhile write it -out thirty times, and say it to me to-night after tea.” - -But he did not let him go. He passed his hand down the boy's arm.... He -saw the form watching him with white faces; his own was white; he was -shaking with rage. - -“Go back to your seat,” he said in a whisper, and he gave him a push. He -sent the form back to learn the work again, and he sat for the rest of -the hour with his head between his hands. Then, when the bell had rung -and most of the form had filed out, he called Garden to him. “I think -fifteen times will be enough,” and he touched the boy's sleeve with his -hand. But Garden went out of the room in silence, infinite contempt in -his eyes. - -Then, the hoys gone, Mr. Perrin's mind went back to the incident of -the preceding night. It was his custom to go and talk for a little to -Moy-Thompson once a week. They disliked each other, of course; but they -could be of mutual advantage, and they both found that hints dropped and -accepted during these little talks were of great value during the days -that followed. Perrin had never any deliberate intention of harming -anyone in these little conversations. But, every man's hand being -against him, it seemed to him only fair that he should use such -opportunities of retaliation as were given him. At the same time these -little confidential talks flattered his sense of power. Dormer was the -senior master at the Lower School, but Perrin knew that Dormer did not -have these little talks; it did not occur to him that the reason might -be that Dormer was too honorable to care about them. Moreover, as far -as Traill was concerned, Perrin really felt that it did not do to have -masters leaping through windows at any hour of the night. The accidental -fact that he disliked Traill intensely had, he persuaded himself, -nothing whatever to do with it; he would have felt it just as strongly -his duty to speak about it had the offender been his dearest friend. - -The accumulative irritations of the morning, succeeding a disturbed and -broken night, only stirred him to further zeal for the school's good. -The only consoling fact in a dark world was that Miss Desart had, in -chapel, last evening, looked at him with eyes that seemed to him on fire -with devotion. He intended, in a day or two, to ask her to come for -a walk with him... and then another walk... and then another... and -then.... - -And so he went to see Moy-Thompson. You can, if the simile is not too -terribly old, imagine Moy-Thompson as a spider and his study as his web; -it was certainly dusty enough, with faded busts of Romans and Greeks -on the top shelves of the book-cases, and gloomy photographs of gloomy -places on the walls. The two men seemed to suit the place well enough, -and its depression really brightened Mr. Perrin up. But it must be -remarked once more that it was not from any anticipation of doing Traill -damage that he embraced and cuddled his little piece of news so eagerly, -but only because it helped his sense of importance. He was already -wishing that he had told Garden Minimus to write his Euclid thirty times -instead of fifteen, so cheered and inspired did he feel. - -The two men understood one another perfectly, and had a mutual respect -for each other 's strong qualities. No time was wasted in preliminaries, -and it was a curious coincidence that Moy-Thompson's first question -should be: “What do you think of Traill? How's he doing?” - -Moy-Thompson is not a pleasant person to contemplate, alone, amongst the -people of that place, there is nothing whatever to be said for him, and -it is my intention to pass over him as quickly as may be. Perrin knew -from the sound of his voice that he had some reason for disliking -Traill. - -“Oh, I think, well enough,” he answered, looking out of the window. “The -boys like him.” - -“Oh, they like him; do they?” - -“Yes. I think he indulges them rather. I'm not quite sure that he sticks -to his work as he should do.” - -“Why! What does he do?” - -“I found him jumping through the Lower School dining-room window at one -o'clock this morning.” - -“Oh, did you!” Moy-Thompson smiled. “Where had he been?” - -“I didn't ask.” - -Perrin pulled his gown about him. A sudden distaste for the whole -business had seized him; after another word or two he went away, back to -his own rooms. III. - -Meanwhile Traill was tired and cross and out of temper with the world. -He found that there was more to be said for the stay-at-home tastes of -the rest of the staff than he had suspected. You couldn't, if you went -gaily dancing the evening before, embrace early morning preparations -with the eagerness and even the attention that it properly demanded. His -mind was heavy, drowsy; he had forgotten his anger with Perrin and was -only rather amused by the whole affair of the night before; but, instead -of correcting Latin exercises, he sat, with his eyes gazing dreamily out -of the window, his thoughts on Isabel. - -He found first hour tiresome and irritating. He lost his temper for the -first time that term, and went, at the end of the second hour, into the -Upper School common room with a cloudy brow and dragging feet. - -Anything drearier than this place it would be impossible to conceive. -There was a long, red-clothed table, a black, yawning grate, a dozen -stiff wooden chairs and, scattered about the room, the whole of the -staff waiting for the bell to ring for third hour. This was the most -irritating quarter of an hour of the day. - -Several men, Comber, Clinton, Dormer, and another, were bending over the -table, supervising the selection of the team for the afternoon's match. -As Traill came in he heard Comber's voice: “Toggett at three-quarter is -perfectly absurd. That's obviously Traill's choice. Traill may be able -to play, but his knowledge of the theory of the game is absolutely nil.” -Comber has resented Traill's entrance into the school football from the -very first. He, although many years past his game, had hitherto led the -Rugby enthusiasts of the school—he had been supreme on the Committee and -had had the last word about the teams. Traill's football, however, was -so obviously superior to anything that the school had had for a great -many years that he was received with open arms. He had not perhaps been -as judiciously submissive to Comber as he might have been, but he -had always deferred his opinion and had never been goaded by Comber's -caustic contradictions into ill-temper. - -He did not now show any ill-temper, but only, with a laugh as he came up -to the table, said, “Thanks, Comber.” - -Dormer hurried to make peace, but Comber continued to mutter: “What -the devil you want to put the man there for, I can't think....” By -the window Birkland and Monsieur Pons were arguing about the latter's -discipline. - -“I should get them to stamp and rush about a bit more, Pons, if I were -you,” Birkland was saying. “It's so delightful for me, being just under -you. It is so easy for me to do my work, so nice to think that they -really are enjoying themselves.” - -Monsieur Pons was waving his arms, excitedly. “I keep them perfectly -still this morning, as still as one mouse. No one stirs. You can hear a -pin drop.” - -“You must have dropped a cartload of them,” said Birkland, frowning. -“Try and drop less next time.” - -Suddenly in the middle of the room there appeared the school sergeant. -That could only mean one thing, and conversation instantly ceased. - -“Mr. Moy-Thompson wishes to see Mr. Traill at twelve,” he said. - -Comber gave a grunt of satisfaction. Traill laughed. “I thought things -were a little too pleasant to last,” he said. His mind flew back to -the incidents of last night. Surely Perrin couldn't have said anything. -Probably Moy-Thompson had heard of it in some other way. He shrugged -his shoulders and thought, as he looked round the dreary room, that -schoolmastering wasn't always pleasant. He wondered, too, a little -unhappily, why, when one wanted things to go well everything should go -wrong, through no fault of one's own. - -Here were Perrin and Comber, for instance; they both obviously disliked -him, and yet he had done nothing to either of them. As he went out, he -caught White looking at him timidly, but sympathetically, and he smiled -at him. And indeed at twelve, when he knocked on the door at the end of -the dark passage, it was chiefly his memory of the last occasion that he -had been there, of White's pale face, that remained with him. - -Pathos has, too, often its intense, pathetic moment coming, for no -definite reason, out of a mysterious distance and choosing to fill, -as water fills a pool, rooms and places and companies of people. Now, -suddenly, this study; with Moy-Thompson in it was a place, to Traill, -of the intensest pathos, so that it seemed strange that, with such -brilliant things as the world contained, it should be allowed to -continue. His own position was lost in the perpetual vision of White -standing, as he had seen him, with bent head. - -“Ah, Traill,” said Moy-Thompson. “Sit down. I have been wanting to have -a talk with you. I hope that this time is quite convenient?” - -“Perfectly,” said Traill. - -“I've been intending to come down and look at your form, but I have had -no opportunity. I must try and manage next week.” - -Traill said nothing. Moy-Thompson smiled at him. “I hope that you have -had no trouble with discipline.” - -“None. The boys are excellent.” - -“Ah! that is splendid.” There was a pause; then the beard was suddenly -lifted, and a glance was flashed across the table. “I hope that you take -your work seriously, Mr. Traill.” Traill flushed a little. “I think that -I do,” he said. - -“That is well.... Because we are—ah! um—a great institution, a very -great institution. We owe our traditions—um, eh—a very serious and -determined attention to detail. To work together, as one man, for the -good of our race, that must be our object. Yes. No divisions, all in -friendly brotherhood—um, yes.” Traill said nothing. - -“I hope that you realize this. We want every energy, every nerve, at -work. We must not waste a moment, nor grudge every instant to the cause -we have at heart. Um, yes, I hope that you agree, Mr. Traill.” - -“I hope,” Traill said, “that you have not found me wanting, that you -have nothing to complain of. I think that I have worked—” - -“Worked? Ah, yes.” Moy-Thompson caught him up, cracking his fingers -together. “But what about play, eh? What about play?” Traill flushed. -“As to football—” - -“No, it is not football. It is merely a detail—quite a detail. But Mr. -Perrin informs me that you came in at one o'clock this morning through -the window. I confess that I was surprised.” - -“That is quite true,” said Traill, in a low voice. “I went—” - -“Ah! no! please!” Mr. Thompson lifted a large white hand. “No details -are necessary. The facts are sufficient. I need not, I think, say any -more. You must see for yourself.... Only, I think you will agree with me -that it should not occur again.” - -“I am sorry—” Traill said. - -“Ah, please! No more; it shall not be mentioned again. Only work and -play together are impossible. We have long vacations that give us all we -ask. To pass for a moment to another matter.” Moy-Thompson put his -hand on some papers. “Here are the scholarship questions that you have -set—geography and history. I think they are scarcely what we require. -If you would not mind resetting them and bringing them to me to-morrow. -Yes. Thank you.... Good morning.” Traill rose, took the papers in his -hand, and left the room. He knew, surely, certainly, as though Birkland -himself had told him, that this was to be the beginning of persecution. -The Reverend Moy-Thompson had got his knife into him, and he had Perrin -to thank for it. IV. - -The interview that had lasted barely five minutes hung heavily over him -throughout the midday dinner. He always hated the meal: the great -joints of mutton, waiting to be carved, in shapeless, thick hunks, the -incessant noise throughout the meal, the clatter of plates and noise and -voices, the dreary monotony and repetition of it—Perrin's face seen at -the end of a long white table with the two rows of boys in between. - -But to-day as he sat there he felt that he could kill Perrin if he had -the opportunity. What business was it of his? He had at any rate lost no -time in running to tell Moy-Thompson about it. The thought of the savage -joy that must have filled Perrin's breast whilst he told his news, made -Traill grind his teeth. Well! he would be even with him! - -The moment the meal was over, and grace had been chanted in a loud, -discordant yell, Traill left the table and, without a word to anyone, -rushed down to the sea. - -A tremendous wind was blowing. There was a certain part of the cliff -that jutted out into the water, and this was surrounded now, on three -sides, by a furious, heaving flood. - -Wet mist hung over the sea, so that the enormous breakers leapt out of -the sea, came whistling with a thousand arms into the sky, and them -fell with a deafening roar upon the rocks. One after another, in swift -succession, first suspended in mid-air, hanging there like serpents -about to strike, then falling with a curve and glistering, shining -backs, then sweeping, tearing, at last lashing the iron rock. About him -the wind screamed and tugged at his clothes; behind him the trees bent -and creaked along the road; the rain lashed his face. - -He was seized with a kind of fury; he stood, facing the sea, with his -hands clenched, his head up, his cap in his hand, and Isabel Desart, as -she came battling down the road and saw him there, knew, in that moment, -that she loved him and had loved him from the first moment that she saw -him. He saw her, but they could not speak to one another: the noise was -too great—the waves, the wind, the bending trees caught them into their -clamor; they stood, side by side, in silence. Suddenly he put out his -hand and caught hers. He held it; still, without a word, with the wind -almost flinging them to the ground, they drew together. The mist swept -about their heads, the spray beat in their faces. He drew her closer -to him, and she yielded. For a moment he held her with his face pressed -close against hers, and then their lips met. At last, and still without -a word, they moved slowly down the road.... V. - -It was about half-past nine when Perrin, looking up at the sound of the -opening door, saw Traill standing there. Traill filled the doorway, and -Perrin knew at once that there was going to be a disturbance. He had had -disturbances before, a good many of them, and always it had brought to -him a sense of pathos that he, with an old mother (he always saw her as -a crumpled but vehement background), should have always to be fighting -people—he, so unoffending if they would let him alone. However, if -anyone (especially Traill) wished to fight him, he would do his best. - -Traill was frowning. Traill was very angry. - -Perrin said, “Ah, Traill! Come in for a chat? That's good of you. -Splendid! Sit down, won't you? Anything I can do for you?” But he wasn't -smiling. - -“No,” said Traill, slowly. “There's nothing you can do for me. But I -want to speak to you.” - -“Ah, well, sit down; won't you?” - -“No, thanks. I 'll stand.” Traill cleared his throat. “Did you by any -chance say anything to the Head about my coming in last night?” - -Perrin smiled. “My dear Traill, I really can't remember; and is it -really, after all, any business of yours?” - -“Only this much, that he has been speaking to me about it. He says that -you told him—I want to know why you told him.” - -“It is my business,” Perrin said, “as housemaster here to find out -anything that may be harming my house. I consider your late hours, your -disregard of your work, prejudicial to the school's progress,—um, yes.” - -The impulse that had brought Traill to Perrin's room had not altogether -been one of anger. He was much too excited by the other event of the -afternoon to have any very angry feelings against anyone, and indeed -it had been rather a desire for peace, for clearing things up and being -well with the world, that had brought him there. He was a little ashamed -of the way that he had allowed, during these last weeks, his anger -against Perrin to grow, and he seemed to be losing some of his -good-humor and equability. - -So now he put all the self-command that he possessed into play, and said -quietly, “I'm sorry, Perrin, if you feel that I have been neglecting my -duty. I don't think that, after all, one night's outing during the term -can do anyone very great harm. But I only spoke to you about it because -I have been feeling during these last weeks that we have not been very -good friends. It seems a pity when we are cooped up together here -so closely that we should not get on as well as possible; it makes -everything uncomfortable. And, in so far as I am to blame at all, I am -very sorry.” - -The little red and yellow china man on the mantelpiece, Perrin said, -had been watching the conversation with great curiosity, and Perrin felt -that he was a little disappointed now when matters promised to finish -comfortably. Perrin himself was only too ready for peace. These quarrels -always brought on headaches, and, in his heart, he longed eagerly, -hungrily, for a friend. He already was beginning to feel again that he -liked young Traill very much. - -He sat back in his chair and meant to be pleasant once more; but it was -his eternal misfortune, his curse from the deriding gods, that he had -ever at his hack the memory of all these jesting years that had already -passed him by: the memory of the men, the boys, the women, who had -laughed at him: the memory of the ways that he had suffered, of the -taunting jeers that had been flung at him, of the jests that so many of -his fellow-beings had, in his time, played upon him. - -And so now he felt that at all costs he must regain his dignity, he must -show this young fellow his place and then be nice to him afterwards; and -really, somewhere in the hack of his mind, he saw his old mother with -her white lace cap sitting stiffly in her chair, and Traill on his -knees, kissing her hand. - -“Well, Traill, I 'm sure I 'm glad you feel like that—um, yes. One must, -you know, maintain discipline. You are young; when you are older you -will see that there is something in what I say—um. We know, you see; -schoolmastering is a thing that takes some learning; yes, well, I'm sure -I'm very glad.” - -But Traill was white again; his good determinations, his pleasant -tempers were flung, suddenly screaming, helter-skelter to the winds. -The patronage of it, the stupid, blundering fool with his “When you are -older,” and the rest. - -“All right,” he said hotly; “keep that advice for others. I don't know -that I was so wrong, after all. What business of yours was it to -go sneaking to the Head like that? There are certain things that a -gentleman doesn't do.” - -“Oh, really!”—the little man on the mantelpiece was smiling again. -Perrin was snarling, and his hands gripped the sides of his chair. “Your -apologies seem a little premature. One can forgive something to your -age, but that sort of impertinence—I don't think you remember to whom -you are speaking. You are the junior master here, you must be taught -that, and when those who are wiser than yourself choose to give you some -advice, you should take it gratefully.” - -Traill took a step down the room, his hands clenched. - -“My God! you conceited, insufferable—” - -“Get out of my room!” - -“All right, when I 've told you what I 've thought of you.” - -“Get out of my room!” Perrin's eyes were starting out of his head. - -Traill swung on his heel. “I won't forget this in a hurry,” he said. - -“Take care you don't come in here again,” Perrin shouted after him. The -door was banged. - -Perrin sat back in his chair; the room was going round and round, and he -had a confused idea that people were running races. He pressed his hands -to his head; the little china man leapt, screaming, off the mantelpiece -and ran at him, kicking up his fat little legs; and with the breeze from -under the door, a pile of French exercises fluttered, blew like sails in -the wind, and then slid, scattering, to the floor. - - - - -CHAPTER VII—THE BATTLE OP THE UMBRELLA; THEY OPEN FIRE I. - -BUT, during the week that followed, Traill's good-temper slowly -reasserted itself once more. After all, it was really impossible to -be angry with anyone when the world was alight and trembling with -so wonderful an adventure. They had each of them written to those in -authority. Isabel had a complacent father who knew something of young -Traill's family and, answering at once, said that he would come down -to see them and made it his only stipulation that the engagement should -last for at least a year, until they were both a little older. Traill's -mother was delighted with anything that could give her son such -happiness. It had all been very sudden of course; but then, was not true -love always like that? Had not she, a great many years ago, fallen -in love with Archie's father “all in a minute,” and was not that the -beautiful incautious way that the new practical generation seemed so -often to forget? So, she sent him her blessing and also wrote a little -note to Isabel. - -But they still kept their secret from the others. They meant every day -to reveal it, but they shrank, as each morning came, from all the talk -and chatter that would at once follow. It would mean an end, Isabel -knew, to any easy and pleasant relations that she might have with anyone -at the school. She never understood the reason, but she knew that they -would feel that she had acted in a conceited, presuming manner. It would -not be pleasant. - -So their meetings were, during these days, few and difficult. They -met in the wood and at the sea, and their eyes crossed over the chapel -floor, and they even wrote to one another and posted them elaborately in -the letter-box. - -But on any morning the secret might be revealed. Traill told Isabel -about his quarrel with Perrin, and she urged him to make it up. - -“When we ourselves are so happy,” she said, “we can't quarrel with -anyone—and, poor man, no wonder his temper is irritable. He's a -miserably disappointed man, and I don't think he's very well either. He -looks dreadfully white and strained sometimes. We can afford to put up -with some ill-temper from other people, Archie, just now. When we are so -happy and he is so unhappy, it is a little unfair, isn't it?” - -And so he kissed her and went back resolved to be pleasant and -agreeable. But Perrin gave him no opportunity. They spoke to each other -a little at meals for appearance' sake, but any advances that Traill -made were cut short at once without hesitation. - -Perrin passed about the passages and the class-rooms during this week -heavily, with a white face and a lowering brow—he had headaches, bad -headaches; and his form suffered. II. - -And so it was suddenly, without warning or preparation, that the storm -broke—the storm that was to be remembered for years afterwards at -Moffatt's: the great Battle of the Umbrella, about which strange myths -grew up, that will become, doubtless, in later centuries at Moffatt's a -strange Titanic contest, with gods for its warriors and thunderbolts -for their weapons; the great battle that involved not only the central -combatants, not only Traill and Perrin and their lives and fortunes, but -also others—the Combers, the matrons, the masters, the whole world -of that place seized by the Furies... and, in the corner, in that -umbrella-stand by the hall door, underneath the stairs, that faded -green umbrella—now, we suppose, passed into that limbo into which all -umbrellas must eventually go, but then the gage, the glove, the sign -token of all that was to come. - -Let, moreover, no one imagine that these things are not possible. This -Battle of the Umbrella stands for more, for far more, than its immediate -contest. Here is the whole protest and appeal of all those crowded, -stifled souls buried of their own original free-will beneath fantastic -piles of scribbled paper, cursing their fate, but unable to escape from -it, seeing their old age as a broken, hurried scrambling to a no-man's -grave, with no dignity nor suavity, with no temper nor discipline, with -nerves jangling like the broken wires of a shattered harp—so that there -is no comfort or hope in the future, nothing but disappointment and -insult in the past, and the dry, bitter knowledge of failure in the -present—this is the Battle of the Umbrella. - -It was Monday morning, and Monday morning is worse than any other day of -the week. - -There has been, in spite of many services and the reiteration of -religious stories concerning which a shower of inconvenient questions -are flung at the uncertain convictions of authority, a relief in the -rest and repose of the preceding day. - -Sunday was, at any rate, a day to look forward to in that it was -different from the other six days of the week, and although it might not -on its arrival show quite so pleasant a face as earlier hours had given -it, nevertheless it was something—a landmark if nothing else. - -And now on this dark and dreary Monday—with the first hour a tedious and -bickering discussion on Divinity, and the second hour a universal and -embittered Latin exercise—that early rising to the cold summoning of the -hell was anything but pleasant. - -Moreover, on this especial Monday the rain came thundering in furious -torrents, and the row of trees opposite the Lower School wailed and -cried with their dripping, naked boughs, and all the brown leaves on the -paths were beaten and flattened into a miserable and hopeless pulp. - -Monday was the only morning in the week on which Traill took early -preparation at the Upper School, and he had noticed before that it -nearly always rained on Mondays. He was in no very bright temper as he -hurried down the cold stone passages, pulling on his gown and avoiding -the bodies of numerous small boys who flung themselves against him as -they rushed furiously downstairs in order to be in time for call-over. - -He heard the rain beating against the window-panes and hurriedly -selected the first umbrella that he saw in the stand and rushed to the -Upper School. - -That preparation hour was unpleasant. M. Pons, the French master, was -in the room above him, and the ceiling shook with the delighted stamp of -twenty boys blessed with a sense of humor and an opportunity of power. -M. Pons could be figured with shaking hands in the middle of the room, -appealing for quiet. And, as was ever the case, the spirit of rebellion -passed down through the ceiling to the room beneath. Traill had his boys -well under control; but whereas on ordinary occasions it was all done -without effort and worked of its own accord, on this morning continual -persistence was necessary, and he had to make examples of various -offenders. - -A preparation hour always invited the Seven Devils to dance across the -two hundred of open books, and the tweaking of boys' bodies and the -digging of pins into unsuspecting legs was the inevitable result. Traill -rose at the end of the hour, cross, irritable, and already tired. He -hurried down to the Lower School to breakfast and forgot the umbrella. - -The rain was driving furiously against the window-panes of the Junior -common room. The windows were tightly closed, and still the presence of -yesterday's mutton was felt heavily, gloomily, about the ceiling. The -brown and black oilcloth contained numberless little winds and draughts -that leapt out from under it and crept here and there about the room. - -A small fire was burning in the grate—a mountain of black coal and stray -spirals of gray smoke, and little white edges of unburnt paper hanging -from the black bars. Beyond the side door voices quarreling in the -kitchen could be heard, and beyond the other door a hum of voices and a -clatter of cups. - -It was all so dingy that it struck even the heavy brain of Clinton, who -was down first. Perrin was taking breakfast in the big dining-room, and -Traill was not yet hack from the Upper School. - -Clinton seized the Morning Post and, with a grunt of dissatisfaction -at the general appearance of things, sat down. He never thought very -intently about anything, but, in a vague way, he did dislike Monday and -rain and a smoking fire. He helped himself to more than his share of -the breakfast, ate it in large, noisy mouthfuls, found the Morning Post -dull, and relapsed on to the Daily Mail. The rain and the quarreling in -the kitchen were very disturbing. - -Then Traill came in and sat down with an air of relief. He had no very -great opinion of Clinton, but they got on together quite agreeably, -and he found that it was rather pleasanter to have an entirely negative -person with one—it was not necessary to think about him. - -“My word,” said Clinton, his eyes glued to the Daily Mail, “the London -Scottish fairly wiped the floor with the Harlequins yesterday—two goals -and a try to a try—all that man Binton—extraordinary three-quarter—no -flies on him! Have some sausages? Not bad. I wonder if they 'll catch -that chap Deakin?” - -“Deakin?” said Traill rather drearily, looking up from his breakfast. -How dismal it all was this morning! Oh, well—in a year's time! - -“Yes, you know—the Hollins Road murder—the man who cut his wife and -mother into little bits and mixed them up so that they couldn't tell -which was which. There's a photograph of him here and his front door.” - -“I think,” said Traill, shortly, “following up murder trials like that -is perfectly beastly. It isn't civilized.” - -“All right!” said Clinton, helping himself to the remaining sausages. -“Perrin's having breakfast in there, isn't he? He won't want any more.” - -“He sometimes does,” said Traill, feeling that at the moment he hated -Clinton's good-natured face more than anything in the whole world. “He's -awfully sick if he comes in hungry and doesn't find anything.” - -Clinton smiled. “He's rather amusing when he's sick,” he said. “He so -often is. By the way, has the Head passed those exam, questions of yours -yet?” - -“No,” said Traill, frowning. “He 's made me do them five times now, and -last time he crossed but a whole lot of questions that he himself had -suggested the time before. I pointed that out to him, and he called me, -politely and gently, but firmly, a liar. There's no question that he's -got his knife into me now, and I've got friend Perrin to thank for it!” - -“Yes,” said Clinton, helping himself to marmalade, “Perrin does n't love -you—there's no question of that. Young Garden Minimus has been helping -the feud.” - -“Garden? What's he got to do with it?” - -“Well, you know that he was always Old Pompous' especial pet—well, -Pompous has riled him, kept him in or something, so now he goes about -telling everybody that he's transferred his allegiance to you. That -makes Pompous sick as anything.” - -“I like the kid especially,” Traill said. “He 's rather a favorite of -mine.” - -“Yes,” said Clinton. “Well, look out for trouble, that 's all. There 'll -be open war between you soon if you are not careful.” - -At that moment Perrin came in. He was continuing, as he entered, a -conversation with some small boy whose head just appeared at the door -for a moment and revealed Garden Minimus. - -“Well, a hundred times,” Perrin was saying, “and you don't go out till -you 've done it.” - -Garden displayed annoyance, and was heard to mutter under his breath. -Perrin's face was gray; his hair appeared to be unbrushed, and there was -a good deal of white chalk on the back of his sleeve. - -“Really, it's too bad,” he said to no one in particular and certainly -not to Traill. “I don't know what's come over that boy—nothing but -continuous impertinence. He shall go up to the Head if he isn't careful. -Such a nice boy, too, before this term.” - -At this moment he saw that Traill was reading the Morning Post and -Clinton the Daily Mail. He looked as though he were going to say -something, then by a tremendous effort controlled himself. He stood -in front of the dismal fire and looked at the other two, at the dreary -window-panes and the driving rain, at the dusty pigeon-holes, the untidy -heap of books, the torn lists hanging from the wall. - -He had slept badly—had lain awake for hours thinking of Miss Desart, of -his own miserable condition, of his poor mother—and then, slumbering -at last, in an instant he had been pulled, dragged wide-awake by that -thundering, clamoring bell. - -He had been so tired that his eyes had refused to open, and he had sat -stupidly on the edge of his bed with his head swaying and nodding. -Then he had been late for preparation, and he knew that they had been -“playing about” and had rubbed Somerset-Walpole's head in the ink -and had stamped on his body, because, although it was so early, -Somerset-Walpole's eyes were already red, his back a horrible confusion -of dust and chalk, his hair and collar ink and disaster. - -He was sorry for Somerset-Walpole, whose days were a perpetual tragedy; -but as there was no other obvious victim, he selected him for the -subject of his wrath, expatiated to the form on the necessity of getting -up clean in the morning, and sent the large, blubbering creature up -to the matron to be cleansed and scolded. Verily the delights of some -people's school days have been vastly exaggerated! - -Then Garden Minimus had been discovered sticking nibs into the fleshy -portion of his neighbor, and, although he had vehemently denied the -crime, had been heavily punished and had therefore sulked during the -rest of the hour. At breakfast-time Perrin had called him up to him and -had hinted that if he chose to be agreeable once again the punishment -might be relaxed; but Garden did not please, and sulked and muttered -under his breath, and Perrin thought he had caught the word “Pompous.” - -All these things may have been slight in themselves, but combined they -amounted to a great deal—and all before half-past eight in the morning. -Also he had had very little to eat. - -He had been brought a small red tomato and a hard, rocky wedge of bacon -with little white eyes in it, and an iron determination to hold out at -all costs, whatever the consumer's appetite and determination. He smelt, -when he came into the common room, sausages, and he saw, with a glance -of the eye, that there were sausages no longer. - -“I really think, Clinton,” he said, “that a little less appetite on your -part in the early morning would be better for everyone concerned.” - -Clinton was always perfectly good-tempered, and all he said now was, -“All right, old chap—I always have an awful appetite in the morning. I -always had.” - -Perrin drew himself to his full height and prepared to be dignified. - -Clinton said, “I say, old man, you 've got chalk all over your sleeve.” - -And Perrin, finding that it was indeed true, could say nothing and -feebly tried to brush it off with his hand. - -Traill had not spoken since Perrin had come in. He disliked intensely -the atmosphere of restraint in the room. He had never before been -on such bad terms with anyone, and now at every turn there were -discomforts, difficulties, stiffnesses. At this moment he loathed the -term and the place and the people as he had never loathed any of them -before; he felt that he could not possibly last until the holidays. - -Perrin was going to the Upper School for first hour. He was going to -teach Divinity, the lesson that he loathed most of all. He gathered his. -books up and his gown, and went out into the hall to find his umbrella. -The rain was falling more heavily than before, and lashed the panes as -though it had some personal grievance against them. - -Robert, the general factotum—a long, pale man with a spotty face and a -wonderful capacity for dropping china—came in to collect the breakfast -things. He passed, clattering about the table. Traill was still deep in -the Morning Post. - -Perrin came in with a clouded brow. “I can't find,” he said, “my -umbrella.” - -The rain beat upon the frames, Robert clashed the plates together, but -there was no answer. Clinton's head was in his pigeonhole, looking for -papers. - -“Robert, have you seen my umbrella?” - -No, Robert had not seen any umbrella. He might have seen an umbrella -last week, somewhere upstairs, in Miss Madder's room—an umbrella with -lace, pink—Oh! of course, a parasol. There were three umbrellas in the -stand by the hall door. Perhaps one of those was the one. No? Mr. Perrin -had looked? Well, he didn't know of anywhere else. No—perhaps one of the -young gentlemen.... There was nothing at all to be got out of Robert. - -“Clinton!” No answer. “Clinton!” - -At last Clinton turned round. - -“Clinton, have you seen my umbrella?” - -“No, old man—why should I? Isn't it outside?” - -It was getting late, the rain was pelting down, and Perrin was quite -determined that he would not under any circumstances use anyone else's -umbrella. - -He went out again and looked in the hall. He was beginning to get very -angry. Was not this the last straw sent by the little gods to break his -humble back? That it should be raining, that he should be late, and that -there should be no umbrella! He stormed about the hall, he looked in -impossible places, he shook the three umbrellas that were there; he -began to mutter to himself—the little red and yellow china man was -creeping down the stairs. He was shaking all over, and his hands were -trembling like leaves. - -He came into the common room again. “I can't think—” he said, with his -trembling hand to his forehead. “I know I had it yesterday—last night. -Clinton, you must have seen it.” - -“No,” said Clinton in that abstract voice that is so profoundly -irritating because it shows that the speaker's thoughts are far away. -“No—I don't think I've seen it. What did I do with that Algebra? Oh! -there it is. My word! is n't it raining!” - -The Upper School bell began, far in the distance, its raucous clanging. -Perrin was pacing up and down the room; every now and again he flung a -furtive glance at Traill. Traill had paid, hitherto, no attention to the -conversation. At last, hearing the Upper School bell, he looked up. - -“What's the matter?” he said. - -“Really, Robert,” said Perrin, turning round to the factotum, “you must -have seen it somewhere. It's absurd! I want to go out.” - -“There are the other gentlemen's,” said Robert, looking a little -frightened of Perrin's twitching lips and white face. - -It dawned upon Traill slowly that Perrin was looking for an umbrella. -Then on that it followed that possibly the umbrella that he had taken -that morning might be Perrin's umbrella. - -Of course it must be Perrin's umbrella. It was just the sort of -umbrella, with its faded silk and stupid handle, that Perrin would be -likely to have. However, it was really very awkward—most awkward. - -He stood up and stayed with a hand nervously fingering the Morning Post. - -Perrin rushed once more into the hall and then came furiously back. “I -must have my umbrella,” he said, storming at Robert. “I want to go to -the Upper School.” - -He had left the door a little open. - -“I am very sorry,” Traill began; the paper crackling beneath his -fingers. - -Perrin wheeled round and stared at him, his face very white. - -“I'm very sorry,” said Traill again, “but I'm afraid I must have taken -it—my mistake. I wouldn't have taken it if I had dreamed—” - -“You!” said Perrin in a hoarse whisper. - -“Yes,” said Traill, “I'm afraid I took the first one I saw this morning. -I'm afraid it must have been yours, as yours is missing. I assure you—” - -He was smiling a little—really it was all too absurd. His smile drove -Perrin into a trembling passion. He took a step forward. - -“You dared to take my umbrella?” he said, “without asking? I never heard -such a piece of impertinence. But it's all of a piece—all of a piece!” - -“But it's really too absurd,” Traill broke in. “As though a man mightn't -take another man's umbrella without all this disturbance. It's too -absurd.” - -“Oh! is it?” said Perrin, his voice shaking. “That's all of a -piece—that's exactly like the rest of your behavior here. You come here -thinking that everything and everyone belongs to you. Oh, yes! we've all -got to bow down to everything that your Highness chooses to say. We must -give up everything to your Highness—our clothes, our possessions—you -conceited—insufferable puppy!” - -These words were gasped out. Perrin was now entirely beside himself -with rage. He saw this man here before him as the originator of all his -misfortunes, all his evils. He had put the other masters against him, he -had put the boys against him, he had taken Garden away from him, he had -been against him at every turn. - -All control, all discipline, everything had fled from Mr. Perrin. He did -not remember where he was, he did not remember that Robert was in the -room, he did not remember that the door was open and that the boys could -hear his shrill, excited voice. He only knew that here, in this smiling, -supercilious, conceited young man, was his enemy, the man who would rob -and ruin him. - -“Really, this is too absurd,” said Traill, stepping back a little, and -conscious of the startled surprise on the face of Robert—he did not want -to have a scene before a servant. “I am exceedingly sorry that I took -your umbrella. I don't see that that gives you any reason to speak to me -like that. We can discuss the matter afterwards—not here.” - -“Oh, yes!” screamed Perrin, moving still nearer his enemy. “Oh! of -course to you it is nothing—nothing at all—it is all of a piece with the -rest of your behavior. It you don't know how to behave like a gentleman, -it's time someone taught you. Gentlemen don't steal other people's -things. You can be put in prison for that sort of thing, you know.” - -“I didn't steal your beastly umbrella,” said Traill, beginning in his -anger to forget the ludicrousness of the situation. “I don't want your -beastly things—keep them to yourself.” - -“I say”—this from Clinton—“chuck it, you two. Don't make such a row -here—everyone can hear. Wait until later.” - -But Perrin heard nothing. He had stepped up to Traill now and was -shaking his fist in Traill's face. - -“It's beastly, is it?” he shouted. “I 'll give you something for saying -that—I 'll let you know.” And then, in a perfect scream, “Give me my -umbrella! Give me my umbrella!” - -“I haven't got your rotten umbrella,” shouted Traill. “I left it -somewhere. I've lost it. I'm jolly glad. You can jolly well go and look -for it.” - -And at this moment, as Clinton afterwards described it, “the scrap -began.” Perrin suddenly flung himself upon Traill and beat his face -with his fist. Traill clutched Perrin's arm and flung him back upon the -breakfast-table. Perrin's head struck the coffee-pot, and as he rose he -brought with him the tablecloth and all the things that Robert had left -upon the table. With a fearful crash of crockery, with the odors of -streaming coffee, with the cry of the terrified Robert, down everything -came. Afterwards there was a pause whilst Perrin and Traill swayed -together, then with another crash, they too came to the floor. - -Clinton and Robert rushed forward. Two Upper School masters, Birkland -and Comber, surveyed the scene from the doorway. There was an instant's -absolute silence. - -Then suddenly Traill and Perrin both rose from the floor. Traill's lip -was cut and bleeding—coffee was on Perrin's collar; their faces were -very white. - -For a moment they looked at each other in absolute silence, then they -passed, without a spoken word, through the open door. - -In such a way, and from such a cause, did this Battle of the Umbrella -have its beginning. - -Let us credit the gods with interest sufficient, and we see that it had -been their pleasant amusement to beguile those tedious Olympian hours -with a game; and to the onlooker, here is comedy enough, for about what -simpler can mortals dispute than this green umbrella? But for others, -more nearly concerned, there is some question of tragedy involved. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII—THE BATTLE OP THE UMBRELLA; CAMPS ARE FORMED—ALSO SOME -SKIRMISHING I. - -ISABEL DESART heard about it early on the afternoon of the same day. -Traill himself told her as he stood with her for a moment outside the -school gates before he went down to football. - -She saw it at once more seriously than he did; his attitude had been -that it was a pity, above all that it was indecorous, that he had, in a -way, made a fool of himself—that to struggle in that fashion with a man -like Perrin before an audience was a pity. But to her it was a great -deal more than this. In many ways she was older than Archie Traill, and -her feminine intuition helped her now; she saw Perrin as something to -be feared and also something to be pitied, and she did not know which of -these feelings was the stronger. She had always seen Perrin as someone -to be pitied—that was the reason of her kindness to him—and now that he -was ludicrous, now that his climax had made him prominent, her pity for -him was increased. - -But she was also afraid. She guessed suddenly a great deal more than -she could actually see; she felt the miserable years that he had been -through, she felt his hatred of his own position, and she knew that he -would not be likely to forgive the man who had brought all this to a -climax. - -They were all at such terribly close quarters. It would be easy enough -to get away from that sort of incident if they all of them were, as she -put it to herself, “spread out”; but halfterm was only just over and she -did not know what the next six weeks might bring. Traill's feeling, she -saw, was mainly one of disgust—the same kind of sensation that he would -have had if he had not been able to have his bath in the morning. -About Perrin he only felt contempt, a man who could make that kind of -disturbance about so small a thing.... - -Traill's final opinion, in fact, about it all was that “it wasn't done” -and that Perrin was therefore an “outsider,” and that there the thing -ended. - -Isabel, in the few words that he had time to say to her, saw all this -and knew that his attitude would not make the whole affair any easier. -But she was wise enough to leave it all where it was for the moment and -simply to tell him that she was sorry. - -“One thing, you know,” she said, smiling at him and blushing a little. -“We must let them all know about us, at once, to-day.” - -“Oh! must we?” he said, shrinking back a little. - -“Why, of course. You don't suppose there isn't going to be talk about -all this business. Of course, there is, heaps—and you must let me do my -share of standing up for you. I must have the right, you know.” - -He had not figured the talk that there would be—he saw it all now in an -instant, that there would be sides and discussions, and, looking further -still, he had some idea of all the issues that were to be involved; but -he was much too simple a person to think this further vision anything -but fantastic: people simply didn't fight to that extent about -umbrellas.... - -He left her with a smiling consent to the announcement of their -engagement, and, for the moment, the thought of that swallowed all the -Perrin affair. He went down to his football cheerfully. II. - -Meanwhile, in the Senior common room, during that interval between -chapel and dinner, things had occurred. The news of the morning -struggle had been brought, of course, by the eager witnesses, Comber and -Birkland, much earlier in the day; but the school day was a very busy -one—one hour followed another with terrible swiftness, and then there -were boys to see and games to play and all the accumulated details to -fill in any odd moments that there might be,—so that, with the exception -of short sentences and exclamations and a general air of pleasurable -surprise pervading everything, no real movement was possible until this -evening hour. The room, lighted by gas, was more ugly and naked than -ever—although it was close and stuffy, the spirit of it was cold and -chill. - -Comber was in the chair of honor, the only arm-chair in the room; -Birkland and Pons, White and Dormer, and the little science master, -West, were also there. Little West was so obvious and striking an -example of his type that it seemed as though he had been especially -created to stand to the end of time as an example of what a Board School -education and a pushing disposition can do for a man. He was short -and square, with a shaggy, unkempt mustache and that sallow, unhealthy -complexion that two generations of ill-fed progenitors tend to produce. -He was a little bald on the top of his head, wore ready-made clothes, -and spoke slowly and with great care. He had worked exceedingly hard -all his youth and was the only master at Moffatt's whose ambitions were -unimpaired and his optimism (concerning his own future) unchecked. His -most striking feature were his hard, burning, little eyes, and it was -with these that he kept order in class. - -He disliked all the other members of the staff, but he hated Birkland. -Birkland had, from the first, laughed at him; he had laughed at his -clothes, at his accent, at his pretensions to being a gentleman (to do -Birkland justice, if West had never pretended to be a gentleman at all, -he would have admired and liked him). In fact he made him his chief -and principal butt; and West, being slow of speech and (outside his own -subject) slow of brain, could never reply anything at all to Birkland's -sallies, and was left helpless and fuming. - -Comber was reciting for the hundredth time what it was that he had seen. -The whole affair gave him very particular pleasure; he thought Traill -a conceited, insufferable young man, who had come in and taken the -football out of his hands and supplanted him completely—whenever he -thought of it he boiled over with rage; but he had never been able to -do anything, because Traill had never given himself away. He played -football a great deal better than Comber even in his palmiest days had -ever played it. Traill had given him no opportunity until now; but now -at last Comber glowed with the thought of the things that he would be -able to do. He intended it in no way maliciously—it was simply that the -younger generation should be taught its place; let Traill once submit to -Comber's rule in the football world and Comber would be pleasant enough. -Then Comber did not like Birkland's sharp tongue any more than the rest -of the staff did, and Birkland was a friend of Traill's. Of course, on -the other side, Comber did not like Perrin either. Perrin was a pompous, -pretentious fool, but in this case it was clearly Comber's duty to -uphold the senior staff. - -He was leaning back in his arm-chair, with his chest out and one finger -impressively in the air. “There they were, you know, rolling—positively -rolling—on the floor. And all the breakfast things broken to bits and -the coffee streaming all over the floor—you never saw anything like it. -And then up they both got and looked at each other, and went out of the -room without a word, brushing past Birkland and me as though we weren't -there; didn't they, Birkland?” - -Birkland was sitting in his chair with a sad, rather cynical, smile on -his face, as though he were saying, “This is their kind of life. Look -at Comber there, now—how pleased he is with things! Will be happy for -a month at least, and all their little private hates and jealousies are -being fed just as you feed the snakes at the Zoo. And am I not just as -bad as the rest? Am I not pleased, because it will give me a chance of -having a hit at the rest of them?... What a set we are!” - -But he didn't say anything—he just sat there listening, with his -contemptuous smile, to Comber. - -“An awful noise, you know, they made,” Comber went on. “And anything -funnier than Perrin when he got up you never saw, with his hair all -tousled and pulled about, and dust all over his back, and his cheek -bleeding where the coffee-pot had hit him. My word, it was funny!” - -“At all events,” said Birkland dryly, “we ought all to be glad that you -got such amusement out of it, Comber. That's something to be thankful -for, at any rate.” - -“Oh, it's all very well, Birkland,” Comber answered angrily; “you were -amused enough yourself, really—you know you were. In any case,” he went -on importantly, “the thing can't go on, you know. We can't have junior -masters flinging themselves at the throats of senior ones. That sort of -thing must be stopped.” - -So it was at once apparent on whose side Comber was, and everyone -trimmed their sails accordingly. If one disliked Comber sufficiently and -was not afraid of him, one would, of course, for the moment, side with -Traill; and supposing one wished to get into Comber's good graces (no -easy thing to do), here would be an excellent opportunity. M. Pons, for -instance, thought so. - -“It is—dégoûtant,” he cried, waving his hands in the air, “that a -young man, that is here one month, two months, should catch the throat -of his senior. These things,” he added with the air of one who waves -gloriously the flag of the Republic, “are not done in my country.” - -“Well, when they are, perhaps you 'll be able to judge of them better, -Pons,” said Birkland. “Until then, I should recommend silence.” - -M. Pons flushed angrily, but made no reply, and then looked appealingly -at Comber. - -“Of course, Birkland,” said Comber, “if you are going to encourage that -sort of spirit in the staff, one has nothing to say. I daresay you would -like all the boys to be springing at one another's throats in the -same way; if that's what you want, well—“; and he waved his hands -expressively. - -“It's absurd,” said Birkland quietly, “of Perrin to have made such a -fuss. As if a man mayn't borrow another man's umbrella without being -struck in the face. It's more than absurd, it's childish. It's just the -sort of thing that Perrin would do.” - -“Very well,” said Comber; “let Perrin treat you in the way that Traill's -treated him, and you see what you'd say and do. All I know is that you -would n't stand it for a minute, you of all men, Birkland.” - -“What do you mean by that?” Birkland said hotly. - -“Oh, well, we all know you haven't got the sweetest of tempers, old -man,” Comber said laughing. “You can't lay claim to good temper whatever -else you may have.” - -West laughed also and seemed to enjoy the joke immensely. - -“Of course, you 're on the side of authority, West,” Birkland said. “You -naturally would be.” West was all the more annoyed because he didn't in -the least understand what Birkland meant. - -The atmosphere began to get warm. But Comber despised West as an ally -and did not think very much of M. Pons, so he turned round to White. -White was sitting, as he always did, quietly in the background, without -saying anything. He was so quiet that people often forgot that he was -there at all. The effect of many years' bullying by Moy-Thompson was -to make him agree eagerly with the opinion of the last speaker, and -therefore Comber hadn't any doubt about the support that he would -receive. But White had never forgotten that handclasp that Traill had -given him, and now, to everyone's intense surprise, he said, “I think -Birkland's perfectly right. A man oughtn't to lose his temper because -another man's borrowed his umbrella. I think Traill's been very hardly -used—at any rate, we all know what Perrin must be to live with.” - -Everyone was surprised, and Comber so astonished that for some time he -could find no words at all. - -At last he broke out, “Well, all I can say is that you people don't know -what you 're in for; if you go on encouraging people like Traill to go -about stealing people's things—” - -“Look here, Comber,” Birkland broke in. “You've no right to say -stealing. You may as well try and be fair. Traill never stole anything; -you'd better be more careful of your words.” - -“Well, I call it stealing anyhow,” said Comber hotly. “You can call it -what you like, Birkland. I daresay you've got pet words of your own for -these things. But when a man takes something that is n't his and keeps -it—” - -“He didn't keep it,” Birkland said angrily. “You 're grossly prejudiced, -just as you always are.” - -“What about yourself?” West broke in. “People in glass houses—” - -At this point the temperature of the room became very warm indeed. -Comber was pale with rage; he had never been so insulted before—not that -it very much mattered what a wretched creature like Birkland said. - -He began to explain in a loud voice that some people weren't fit to be -in gentlemen's society, and that though, of course, he wouldn't like to -mention names, nevertheless, if certain persons thought about it long -enough, they would probably find that the cap fitted, and that if only -people could occasionally see themselves as others saw them—well, it -might be better for everyone concerned, and then perhaps there would -be a chance of their behaving decently in decent society, although of -course, if one's education had been neglected.... - -Meanwhile, M. Pons was explaining to West that whether you went in for -science or modern languages one's opinion of this sort of affair must be -the same, there was no question about it. - -Birkland was sitting back, white and stiff in his chair and wishing -that he might take all their heads and crash them together in one big -debacle. - -Then suddenly, when another two minutes might have been dangerous for -everyone concerned, the door was flung open, and Clinton entered. He was -excited, he was stirred; it was obvious that he had news. - -“I say!” he cried, and then stopped. All eyes were upon him. - -“What do you think?” he cried again, “Traill has just told me. He 's -engaged to Miss Desart.” - -At that there was dead silence—for an instant nobody spoke. Then Comber -got up from his chair. “Well, I'm damned!” he said. - -This was a new development; it is hard to say whether he saw at once -then the domestic complications into which it would lead him. Miss -Desart had stayed with them again and again; she was their intimate -friend. His wife was devoted to her and would, of course, at once -espouse her cause. But this piece of news made him, Comber, even -angrier than he had been before. His feeling about the engagement defied -analysis, but it rested in some curious, hidden way on some strange -streak of vanity in him. He had always cared very especially for Miss -Desart; he had given her, in his clumsy, heavy way, little attentions -and regards that he gave to very few people. He had always thought that -she had very great admiration and reverence for himself, and now she -had engaged herself without a word to him about it to someone whom he -disliked and disapproved of. He was hurt and displeased, he knew that -his wife would be delighted—more trouble at home. Here was White openly -insulting him in the common room; he was called names by Birkland; a -nice, pleasant girl had defied him (it had already come to that); his -wife would probably defy him also in an hour or two—with a muttered word -or two, he left the gathering. - -For the others, this engagement was a piquant development that lent a -new color to everything. They had all noticed that Mr. Perrin cared for -Miss Desart, and now this sudden dramatic announcement was another knock -in the face for that poor, battered gentleman. Of course, she would -never have accepted him; but, nevertheless, it was rather hard that she -should be handed over to his hated rival. - -“Does Perrin know?” was West's eager question. - -“No,” said Clinton smiling, “I'm just going to tell him.” III. - -Meanwhile, there is our Mr. Perrin sitting very drearily and alone in -front of his somber fire. As he sat there it was n't that he was so much -depressed by the morning's affair as that he was so frightened by -it—not frightened because of anything that Traill could do, or indeed -of anything that anyone could very especially say: he was long past the -terror of tongues—but rather afraid of himself and the way that he might -be going to behave. - -He had long ago, when he was a very young man indeed, recognized that -there were two Mr. Perrins; indeed, in all probability, more than two. -He knew that when he had been quite a boy he had had ideas of being a -hero—a hero, of course, just as other young things meant to be heroes, -with a great deal of recognition and trumpets and bands and one's face -in the papers. He had, moreover, in those days, a stern and ready belief -in his own powers and judged, from a comparison of himself with other -boys, that he was really promising and had a future. He had heard some -preacher in a sermon—he went to sermons very often in those days—say -that every man had, once at any rate during his lifetime, his chance, -and that it was his own fault if he missed it; that very often people -did not know that it had ever come, because they had not been looking -out for it, and then they cursed Fate when it was really their own -fault—all this Perrin remembered, and he would lie awake at nights on -the watch for this chance—this splendid moment. - -That was one Mr. Perrin; rather a fine one, with a great desire to do -the right thing, with a very great love for his mother, and with rather -a pathetic anxiety to have friends and affection and to do good. - -Then there was the other Mr. Perrin—the ill-tempered, pompous, -sarcastic, bitter Mr. Perrin. When Perrin No. 1 was uppermost, he -recognized and deeply regretted Perrin No. 2; but when Perrin No. 2 was -in command, he saw nothing but a spiteful and malignant world trying, as -he phrased it, to “do him down.” - -Now, as he sat sadly by his fire, he saw them both. That Mr. Perrin this -morning had, of course, been Perrin No. 2, and Perrin No. 2 very fierce -and strong and warlike. Perrin No. 1 was afraid. If this sort of thing -continued, then Perrin No. 1 would disappear altogether. This term had -been worse than ever, and he had begun it with so strong a determination -to make a good thing of it! This young Traill—and then Perrin No. 2 -showed his head again, and the room grew dark and there was thunder in -the air. But, oh! if he could only have his chance! If he could only -prove the kind of man that he could be! If he could only get out of -this, away from it—if someone would take him away from it: he did not -feel strong enough, after all these years, to go away by himself. And -then, suddenly, he thought of Miss Desart. He saw her as his shining -light, his beacon. There was his salvation; he would make her love him -and care for him. He would show her the kind of man that he could be; -and then at the thought of it he began to smile, and a little color -crept into his pale cheeks, and he felt that if only that were possible, -he might be quite pleasant to Traill and the rest. Oh! they would matter -so little! - -He nodded humorously to the little man on the mantelpiece and fell into -a delicious reverie. He forgot the quarrel of the morning, the insults -that he had received, all the talk that there would be, all the -opportunities that it would give to his enemies to say what they thought -about him. And then, perhaps, with her by his side, he might rise to -great things: he would have a little house, there would be children, -he would be his own master, life would be free, splendid, above all, -tranquil. He could make her so fond of him—he was sure that he could; -there were sides of him that no one had ever seen—even his mother did -not know all that was in him. - -Perrin No. 1 filled the dingy room with his radiance. There was a knock -on the door. Clinton came in, a pipe in his mouth, a book in his hand. - -“Oh! here's your Algebra that you lent me. I meant to have returned it -before.” - -“Oh, thanks!” Perrin was always rather short with Clinton. “Won't you -sit down?” - -“No thanks, I'm taking prep.” Nevertheless, Clinton lingered a little, -talking about nothing in particular; he stood by the mantelpiece, -fingering things—a practice that always annoyed Perrin intensely,—then -he took up the little china man and looked at him. “Rum chap that,” -he said. “Well, chin-chin—” He moved off; he stood for a moment by the -door. “Oh, I say!” he said, half turning round, his hand on the handle; -“have you heard the news? Traill's engaged to Miss Desart. He's just -told me.” He looked at Perrin for a moment, and then went out, banging -the door behind him. - -Perrin did not move; his hands began to shake; then suddenly his head -fell between his shoulders, and his body heaved with sobs. He sat there -for a long time, then he began to pace his room; his steps were faster -and faster—he was like a wild animal in a cage. - -Suddenly he stopped in front of the little china man. His face was -white, his eyes were large and staring; with a wild gesture he picked -the thing up and flung it to the ground, where it lay at his feet, -smashed into atoms.... - - - - -CHAPTER IX—THE BATTLE OP THE UMBRELLA; WITH THE LADIES I. - -ISABEL told Mrs. Comber on that same afternoon at tea-time; but that -good lady, owing to the interruption of the other good ladies and her -own Mr. Comber, was unable to say anything really about it until just -before going to bed. Mrs. Comber would not have been able to say very -much about it in any case quite at first, because her breath was so -entirely taken away by surprise, and then afterwards by delight and -excitement. For herself this term had, so far, been rather a difficult -affair: money had been hard, and Freddie had been even harder—and hard, -as she complained, in such strange, tricky comers—never when you -would expect him to be and always when you wouldn't. This Mrs. Comber -considered terribly unfair, because if one knew what he was going to -mind, one would look out for it and be especially careful; but when he -let irritating things pass without a word and then “flew out” when there -was nothing for anyone to be distressed about, life became a hideous -series of nightmares with the enemy behind every hedge. - -Mrs. Comber knew that this term had been worse than usual, because she -had arrived already, although it was only just past halfterm, at the -condition of saying nothing to Freddie when he spoke to her—she called -it submission, but she never arrived at it until she was nearly at the -limits of her endurance. And now this news of Isabel suddenly made the -world bright again; she loved Isabel better than anyone in the world -except Freddie and the children; and her love was of the purely -unselfish kind, so that joy at Isabel's happiness far outweighed her own -discomforts. She was really most tremendously glad, glad with all her -size and volubility and color. - -Isabel talked to her in her bedroom—it was of course also Freddie's, but -he had left no impression on it whatever, whereas she, by a series of -touches—the light green wall-paper and the hard black of the shining -looking-glass, the silver things, and the china things (not very many, -but all made the most of),—had made it her own unmistakably, so that -everything shouted Mrs. Comber with a war of welcome. It was indeed, in -spite of the light green paper, a noisy impression, and one had always -the feeling that things—the china, the silver, and the chairs—jumped -when one wasn't in, charged, as it were, with the electricity of Mrs. -Comber's temperament and the color of her dresses. - -But of course Isabel knew it all well enough, and she didn't in the -least mind the stridency of it—in fact it all rather suited the sense of -battle that there was in the air, so that the things seemed to say that -they knew that there was a row on, and that they jolly well liked it. -Freddie had been cross at dinner, and so, in so far as it was at all -his room, the impression would not have been pleasant; but he just, one -felt, slipped into bed and out of it, and there was an end of his being -there. - -Mrs. Comber, taking a few things off, putting a bright new dressing-gown -on, and smiling from ear to ear, watched Isabel with burning eyes. - -“Oh! my dear!... No, just come and sit on the bed beside me and have -these things off, and I've been much too busy to write about that skirt -of mine that I told you I would, and there it is hanging up to shame -me! Well! I'm just too glad, you dear!” Here she hugged and kissed and -patted her hand. “And he is such a nice young man, although Freddie -doesn't like him, you know, over the football or something, although I'm -sure I never know what men's reasons are for disliking one another, -and Freddie's especially; but I liked him ever since he dined here that -night, although I didn't really see much of him because, you know, he -played Bridge at the other table and I was much too worried!” She drew -a breath, and then added quite simply, like a child, and in that way of -hers that was so perfectly fascinating: “My dear, I love you, and I want -you to be happy, and I think you will—and I want you to love me.” - -Isabel could only, for answer, fling her arms about her and hold her -very tight indeed, and she felt in that little confession that there -was more pathos than any one human being could realize and that life was -terribly hard for some people. - -“Of course, it is wonderful,” she said at last, looking with her clear, -beautiful eyes straight in front of her. “One never knew how wonderful -until it actually came. Love is more than the finest writer has ever -said and not, I suspect, quite so much as the humblest lover has ever -thought it—and that's pessimistic of me, I suppose,” she added laughing; -“but it only means that I'm up to all the surprises and ready for them.” - -“You 'll find it exactly whatever you make it,” Mrs. Comber said slowly. -“I don't think the other party has really very much to do with it. You -never lose what you give, my dear; but, as a matter of fact he's the -very nicest and trustiest young man, and no one could ever be a brute -to you, whatever kind of brutes they were to anyone else—and I wish I'd -remembered about that skirt.” - -The silence of the room and house, the peace of the night outside, -came about Isabel like a comfortable cloak, so that she believed that -everything was most splendidly right. - -“And now, my dear,” said Mrs. Comber, “tell me what this is that I hear -about your young man and Mr. Perrin, because I only heard the veriest -words from Freddie, and I was just talking to Jane at the time about -not breathing when she's handing round the things, because she's always -doing it, and she 'll have to go if she doesn't learn.” - -Isabel looked grave. - -“It seems the silliest affair,” she said; “and yet it's a great pity, -because it may make a lot of trouble, I'm afraid. But that's why we -announced our engagement to-day, because it 'll be, it appears, a case -of taking sides.” - -“It always is here,” said Mrs. Comber, “when there's the slightest -opportunity of it.” - -“Well, it looks as though there was going to be plenty of opportunity -this time,” Isabel said sighing. “It really is too silly. Apparently -Archie took Mr. Perrin's umbrella to preparation in Upper School this -morning without asking. They hadn't been getting on very well before, -and when Mr. Perrin asked for his umbrella and Archie said that he'd -taken it, there was a regular fight. The worst of it is that there were -lots of people there; and now, of course, it is all over the school, and -it will never be left alone as it ought to be.” - -“My dear,” said Mrs. Comber, solemnly, “it will be the opportunity for -all sorts of things. We 're all just ripe for it. How perfectly absurd -of Mr. Perrin! But then he's an ass, and I always said so, and now it -only proves it, and I wish he'd never come here. Of course you know that -I'm with you, my dear; but I'm afraid that Freddie won't be, because he -doesn't like your Archie, and there's no getting over it—and on whose -side all the others will be there's no knowing whatever—and indeed I -don't like to think of it all.” - -She was so serious about it that Isabel at once became serious too. Her -worst suspicions about it all were suddenly confirmed, so that the room, -instead of its quiet and peace, was filled with a thousand sharp terrors -and crawling fears. She was afraid of Mr. Perrin, she was afraid of the -crowd of people, she was afraid of all the ill-feeling that promised -soon to overwhelm her. She clutched Mrs. Comber's arm. - -“Oh!” she cried, “will they hate us?” - -“They 'll do their best, my dear,” said that lady solemnly, “to hate -somebody.” II. - -And they came, comparatively in their multitudes, to tea on the next -afternoon. - -Tuesday was, as it happened, Mrs. Comber's day, and the hour's relief -that followed its ending scarcely outweighed the six days' terror at its -horrible approach. Its disagreeable qualities were, of course, in the -first place those of any “at home” whatever—the stilted and sterile fact -of being there sacrificially for anyone to trample on in the presence -of a delighted audience and a glittering tea-table. But in Mrs. Comber's -case there was the additional trouble of “town” and “school” never in -the least suiting, although “town” was only a question of local houses -like the squire and the clergyman, and they ought to have combined, one -would have thought, easily enough. - -The society of small provincial towns has been made again and again the -jest and mockery of satiric fiction, having, it is considered, in the -quality of its conversation a certain tinkling and malicious chatter -that is unequaled elsewhere. Far be it from me to describe the -conversation of the ladies of Moffatt's in this way—it was a thing of -far deeper and graver import. - -The impossibility of escape until the term's triumphant conclusion made -what might, in a wider and finer hemisphere, have been simply malicious -conversation that sprang up and disappeared without result, a perpetual -battle of death and disaster. No slightest word but had its weightiest -result, because everyone was so close upon everyone else that things -said rebounded like peas flung against a board. - -Mrs. Comber, at her tea-parties, had long ago ceased to consider the -safety or danger of anything that she might say. It seemed to her that -whatever she said always went wrong, and did the greatest damage that it -was possible for any one thing to do; and now she counted her Tuesdays -as days of certain disaster, allowing a dozen blunders to a Tuesday and -hoping that she would “get off,” so to speak, on that. But on occasions -like the present, when there was really something to talk about, she -shuddered at the possible horrors; her line, of course, was strong -enough, because it was Isabel first and Isabel last; and if that brought -her into conflict with all the other ladies of the establishment, then -she couldn't help it. Had it been merely a question of the Umbrella -Riot, as some wit had already phrased it, she knew clearly enough where -they were all likely to be; but now that there was Isabel's engagement -as well, she felt that their anger would be stirred by that bright, -young lady having made a step forward and having been, in some odd, -obscure, feminine way, impertinently pushing. - -She wished passionately, as she sat in glorious purple before her -silver, tea-things, her little pink cakes, and her vanishingly thin -pieces of bread-and-butter, that the “town” would, on this occasion at -any rate, put in an appearance, because that would prevent anyone really -“getting at” things; but, of course, as it happened, the “town” for once -wasn't there at all, and the battle raged quite splendidly. - -The combatants were the two Misses Madder, Mrs. Dormer, and Mrs. -Moy-Thompson, and it might seem that these ladies were not numerically -enough to do any lastingly serious damage; but it was the bodies that -they represented rather than the individuals that they actually were; -and poor Mrs. Comber, as she smiled at them and talked at them and -wished that the little pink cakes might poison them all, knew exactly -the reason of their separate appearances and the danger that they were, -severally and individually. - -The Misses Madder represented the matrons, and they represented them as -securely and confidently as though they had sat in conclave already and -drawn up a list of questions to be asked and answers to be given. Mrs. -Dormer represented the wives and also, separately, Mrs. Dormer, in so -far as her own especial dislike of Mrs. Comber went for everything; Mrs. -Moy-Thompson, above all, faded, black, thin, and miserable, represented -her lord and master, and was regarded by the other ladies as a spy -whose accurate report of the afternoon's proceedings would send threads -spinning from that dark little study for the rest of the term. - -The eldest Miss Madder, stout, good-natured, comfortable, had not of -herself any malice at all; but her thin, bony sister, exact in her -chair, and with eyes looking straight down her nose, influenced her -stouter sister to a wonderful extent. - -The thin Miss Madder's remark on receiving her tea, “Well, so Miss -Desart's engaged to Mr. Traill!” showed immediately which of the two -pieces of news was considered the most important. - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Comber, “and I'm sure it's delightful. Do have one of -those little pink cakes, Mrs. Thompson; they 're quite fresh; and I -want you especially to notice that little water-color over there by the -screen, because I bought it in Truro last week for simply nothing -at Pinner's, and I believe it's quite a good one—I'm sure we 're all -delighted.” - -Mrs. Dormer wasn't so certain. “They 're a little young,” she said in -so chilly a voice that she might have been suddenly transferred, against -her will, in the dead of night in the thinnest attire, into the heart -of Siberia. “And what's this I hear from my husband about Mr. Perrin and -Mr. Traill tumbling about on the floor together this morning—something -about an umbrella?” - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Thompson, moving her chair a little closer, “I heard -something this morning about it.” - -Mrs. Comber had never before disliked this thin, faded lady so intensely -as she did on this afternoon—she seemed to chill the room with her -presence; and the consciousness of the trouble that she would bring to -various innocent persons in that place by the report of the things that -they had said, made of her something inhuman and detached. Mrs. Comber's -only way of easing the situation, “Do have another little pink cake, -Mrs. Thompson,” failed altogether on this occasion, and she could only -stare at her in a fascinated kind of horror until she realized with -a start that she was intended as hostess to give an account of the -morning's proceedings. But she turned to Miss Madder. “You were down -there, Miss Madder; tell us all about it.” - -Miss Madder was only too ready, having been in the hall at the time and -having heard what she called “the first struggle,” and having yielded -eventually, rather against her better instincts, to her feminine -curiosity—having in fact looked past the shoulders of Mr. Comber and Mr. -Birkland and seen the gentlemen struggling on the floor. - -“Actually on the floor!” said Mrs. Dormer, still in Siberia. - -“Yes, actually on the floor—also all the breakfast things and coffee all -over the tablecloth.” - -Miss Madder was checked in her enthusiasm by her consciousness of the -cold eye of Mrs. Thompson, and the possibility of being dismissed from -her position at the end of the term if she said anything she oughtn't -to—also the possibility of an unpleasant conversation with her clever -sister afterwards. However, she considered it safe enough to offer it as -her opinion that both gentlemen had forgotten themselves, and that Mr. -Traill was very much younger than Mr. Perrin, although Mr. Perrin was -the harder one to live with—and that it had been a clean tablecloth that -morning. - -“I call it disgraceful,” was the only light that the younger Miss Madder -would throw upon the question. - -For a moment there was silence, and then Mrs. Dormer said, “And really -about an umbrella?” - -“I understand,” said Miss Madder, who was warming to her work and -beginning to forget Mrs. Thompson's eye, “that Mr. Traill borrowed -Mr. Perrin's umbrella without asking permission, and that there was a -dispute.” - -But it was at once obvious that what interested the ladies was the -question of Miss Desart's engagement to Mr. Traill, and the effect that -that had upon the disturbance in question. - -“I never quite liked Mr. Traill,” said Mrs. Dormer decisively; “and I -cannot say that I altogether congratulate Miss Desart—and I must say -that the quarrel of this morning looks a little as though Mr. Traill's -temper was uncertain.” - -“Very uncertain indeed, I should think,” said the younger Miss Madder -with a sniff. - -Mrs. Comber felt their eyes upon her; she knew that they wished to know -what she had to say about it all, but she was wise enough to hold her -peace. - -The other ladies then devoted all their energies upon getting an -opinion from Mrs. Comber. During the next quarter of an hour, every lady -understanding every other lady, a combined attack was made. - -Semi-Chorus a—The question of the umbrella was, of course, a question -of order, and, as Mrs. Dormer put it, when a younger master attacks an -older one and flings him to the ground, and rubs his hair in the dust -and that before a large audience, the whole system of education is in -danger; there 's no knowing when things will begin or end, and other -masters will be doing dreadful things, and then the prefects, and then -other boys, and finally a dreadful picture of the First and Second boys -showing what they can do with knives and pistols. - -Miss Madder entirely agreed with this, and then enlarged further on the -question of property. - -Semi-Chorus b—One had one's things—here she was sure Mrs. Comber would -agree—and if one didn't keep a tight hold of them in these days, one -simply did n 't know where one would be. Of course one umbrella was a -small thing; but, after all, it was aggravating on a wet morning not to -find it and then to have no excuse whatever offered to one—anyone would -be cross about it. And, after all, with some people if you gave them -an inch they took an ell, as the saying was, and if one didn't show -firmness over a small thing like this, it would only lead to people -taking other things without asking until one really did n't know where -one was. Of course, it was a pity that Mr. Perrin should have lost his -self-control as completely as he appeared to have done, but nevertheless -one could quite understand how aggravating it was. - -Semi-Chorus a—Mrs. Dormer, continued, keeping order was no light matter, -and if those masters who had been in a school for twenty years were -to be openly derided before boys and masters, if umbrellas were to -be indiscriminately stolen, and if in fact anything was to be done by -anybody at any time whatever without by your leave or for your leave, -then one might just as well pack up one's boxes and go home; and then -what would happen, one would like to know, to our schools, our boys, and -finally, with an emphatic rattle of cup and saucer, to our country? - -Semi-Chorus b—Enlarged the original issue. It was really rather -difficult when a young man had been behaving in this way to congratulate -the young lady to whom he had just engaged himself. She was of course -perfectly charming, but it was a pity that she should, whilst still so -young, be forced to countenance disorder and tumult, because with -that kind of beginning there was no telling what married life mightn't -develop into. - -Semi-Chorus a—Enlarged yet again on this subject and, without mentioning -names or being in any way specific, drew a dreadful picture of married -lives that had been ruined simply through this question of discipline, -and that if the husband were the kind of man who believed in blows and -riot and general disturbance, then the wife was in for an exceedingly -poor time. - -Mrs. Comber had listened to this discussion in perfect silence. It -was not her habit to listen to anything in perfect silence, but on the -present occasion she continued to enforce in her mind that dark, ominous -figure of Mrs. Thompson. Anything that she said would be used against -her, and there in the corner, with her thin, white hands folded in her -lap, with the black silk of her dress shining in little white lines -where the light caught it, was the person who might undo her Freddie -entirely. Whatever happened, she must keep silence—she told herself this -again and again; but as Mrs. Dormer and Miss Madder continued, she found -her anger rising. She fixed her eyes on the sharp, black feathers in -Miss Madder's hat and tried to discuss with herself the general expense -of the hat and why Miss Madder always wore things that didn't suit her, -and whether Miss Madder wouldn't he ever so much better in a nice green -grave with daisies and church bells in the distance, but these abstract -questions refused to allow themselves to be discussed. She knew as she -listened that Isabel, her dear, beloved Isabel, to whom she owed more -than anyone in the whole world, was being attacked—cruelly, wickedly -attacked. - -Every word that came from their lips increased her rage: they hated -Isabel—Isabel who had never done them any harm or hurt. As their voices, -even and cold, went on, she forgot that dark, silent figure in the -corner, and her hands began to twitch the silk of her purple gown. -Suddenly in an instant Freddie was forgotten, everything was forgotten -save Isabel, and she burst out, her eyes burning, her cheeks flaming: -“Really, Mrs. Dormer, you are a little inaccurate. I'm sure we must all -agree that it's a pity if anyone is so silly as to knock someone else -down because someone else has stolen one's umbrella, and I'm sure I -should never want to; and indeed I remember quite well Miss Tweedy, who -was matron here two years ago, taking a gray parasol of mine to chapel -with her and putting it up before everybody, and nobody thought anything -of it, and I remember Miss Tweedy being quite angry because I asked for -it back again. I think it's very stupid of Mr. Perrin to make such a -fuss about nothing, and I never did like him, and I don't care who knows -it; but at any rate I don't see what this has all got to do with dear -Isabel's engagement, and I think young Traill's a delightful fellow, and -I hope they 'll both be enormously happy, and I think it's very unkind -of you to wish them not to be!” Mrs. Comber took a deep breath. - -“Really, my dear Mrs. Comber,” said Mrs. Dormer very slowly, “I'm sure -we none of us wish them anything but happiness. Please don't have the -impression that we are not eager for their good.” - -“I can't help feeling, Mrs. Comber,” said Miss Madder, “that you have -rather misunderstood our position in the matter.” - -“Well, I'm sure I'm very sorry if I have,” broke in Mrs. Comber -hurriedly, beginning already to be sorry that she had spoken so quickly. - -“You see,” went on Miss Madder, “that I don't think we can any of us -have two feelings about the question of discipline. I'm sure you agree -with us there, Mrs. Comber.” - -“Oh, of course,” said Mrs. Comber. - -But she saw at once that war had been declared. They hated Isabel, and -they hated her; they would make it so unpleasant that Isabel would not -be able to come and stay again—they were of one mind. - -Above all, after they had gone, there remained the impression of -that silent, black lady who had said not a word. What would she tell -Moy-Thompson? What harm would come to Freddie? - -Last, and worst of all, as Mrs. Comber most wretchedly reflected, -Freddie had still to be faced. - -His feelings, she knew, would be strongly expressed, and were certainly -not in a line with her own. - -Oh! the umbrella had a great deal to answer for! III. - -And Freddie was, as a matter of fact, faced that very evening, and a -crisis arrived in the affairs of the Combers which must be chronicled, -because it had ultimately a good deal to do with Isabel and Archie -Traill, and indeed with everyone in the present story. - -But whilst waiting for him downstairs, “dressed and shining,” as she -used to like to say—with the dinner getting cold (for which disaster she -was certain to be scolded)—she wondered in her muddled kind of way why -it was that they should all have wanted to be so disagreeable, why, as a -development of that, everyone always preferred to be disagreeable rather -than pleasant. And she suddenly, facing the ormolu clock and the peacock -screen with her eyes upon them as though they might, with their color -and decoration help her, had a revelation—dim, misty, vague, and lost -almost as soon as it was seen—that it wasn't really anyone's fault at -all—that it was the system, the place, the tightness and closeness and -helplessness that did for everybody; that nobody could escape from it, -and that the finest saint, the most noble character, would be crushed -and broken in that remorseless mill—“the mills of the gods”?—no, the -mills of a rotten, impoverished, antiquated system.... She saw, staring -at the clock and the screen and clinging to them, these men and these -women, crushed, beaten, defeated: Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Dormer, Miss -Madder, her own Freddie, Mr. Perrin, Mr. Birkland, Mr. White—even -already young Traill—all of them decent, hopeful, brave... once. The -coals clicked in the glowing fire, and the soft autumn wind passed down -the darkening paths. She felt suddenly as though she must give it all -up—she must leave Freddie and the children and go away... anywhere... -she could not endure it any longer. And then Freddie came in, irritable, -peevish, scarcely noticing her. Moy-Thompson had changed one of his -hours, and that annoyed him; the soup of course was stone cold, the fish -very little better. He scowled across the table at her, and she tried to -be pleasant and amusing. Then suddenly he had launched into the umbrella -affair. - -“Young Traill wants kicking,” he said. “What are we all coming to, I -should like to know? Why, the man's only been here a month or two, and -he goes and takes a senior master's things without asking leave, and -then knocks him down because he objects. I never heard anything like it. -The fellow wants kicking out altogether.” - -Mrs. Comber said nothing. - -“Well, why don't you say something? You've got some opinion about it, -I suppose; and there's more in it than that—he's gone and got himself -engaged to Isabel, I hear. What's the girl thinking of? They 're both -much too young anyhow. It's absurd. I 'll tell her what I think of it.” - -“Oh, no, Freddie—don't say anything to her. She's so happy about it, and -I'm sure the dear girl has been so good to both of us that she deserves -some happiness, and I do want them to be successful. After all, if Mr. -Traill was a little hasty, he's very young, and Mr. Perrin 's a very -difficult man to get on with. You know, dear, you've always said—” - -“Well, whatever I 've said,” he broke in furiously, “I 've never -advocated stealing nor hitting your elders and betters in the face, and -if you think I have, you 're mightily mistaken.” - -After that there was silence during the rest of the meal. Miss Desart -was dining at the Squire's in the village, and, for once, Mrs. Comber -was glad that the girl was not with them. - -She was very near to tears. The day had been a most terrible one—and her -food choked her. The meal seemed to stretch into infinity, the dreary -dining-room, the monotonous tick of the clock, and always her husband's -scowling face. - -At last it was over, and he went to his study, and she to her little -drawing-room. In front of her fire, her sewing slipped from her lap and -she slept, with her purple dress shining in the firelight, and the rest -of the room in shadow about her. And she dreamt wonderful dreams—of -places where there was freedom and light, of hard, white roads and -forests and cathedrals, and of a wonderful life where there was no -travail nor ill-temper; and her face became happy again, and she saw -Freddie as he had once been, before the shadow of this place had fallen -about him, and in her dreams she was in a place where everyone loved her -and she could make no mistakes. - -Then she woke up and saw Freddie Comber standing near her, and she -smiled at him and then gave a little exclamation because the fire was -nearly out. - -“Yes,” he said, following her glance, “it's a nice, cheerful room for a -man to come into, isn't it, after he's tired and cold with work? I have -got a nice, pleasant little wife. I'm a lucky man, I am.” - -Then, as she began to busy herself with the fire, and tried to brighten -it, he said, “Oh! leave it now, can't you? What's the use of making a -noise and fuss with it now?” - -Then he went on as she got up from her knees again and faced him, “Look -here, we've got to come to an understanding about this business.” - -“What business?” she said faintly, all the color leaving her cheeks. - -“Why, young Traill,” he went on, standing over her. “I'm not going to -have my wife encouraging him in this affair. I tell you I object to -him—he's a conceited, impertinent prig, and he wants putting in his -place, and I 'll let him know it if he comes near here. I won't have him -in the house, and it's just as well he should know it. So don't you go -asking him here.” - -She was now white to the lips. “But,” she said, “I have told Isabel that -I am glad, and I am glad. I like Mr. Traill, and I don't think it was -his fault in this business; and, Freddie dear, you know you are not -quite fair to him because of his football, or something silly, and I'm -sure you don't mind him, really—you don't like Mr. Perrin, you know.” - -This was quite the most unfortunate speech that poor Mrs. Comber could -possibly have made; the mention of the football at once reminded Freddie -Comber of all that he had suffered on that head, and his neck began to -swell with rage, and his cheeks were flushed. - -“Look here, my lady,” he said, “you just leave things alone that don't -belong to you. Never you mind what reasons I 've got for disliking young -Traill—it's enough if I say that he's not to come here—and Miss Isabel -shall hear that from my own lips.” - -In all her long experience of him she had never known him so angry as -he was now, and she had never before been so afraid of him; but at -the mention of Isabel, she called all her courage to her aid and drew -herself up. - -“You must not do that,” she said. “You cannot insult Isabel here, when -she has been such a friend of ours, and been so good—so good. I love -her, and the man she is going to marry is my friend.” - -“Oh!” he said, speaking very low and coming very close to her. “This is -defiance, is it? You will do this and that, will you? I tell you that he -shall not come here.” - -“And I say that he shall,” she answered in a whisper. - -Then, with the accumulated irritation of the day upon him, he suddenly -came to her and, muttering between his teeth, “We 'll see about the -master here,” struck her so that he cut his hand on her brooch, and she -fell back against the wall, and stayed there with her hands spread out -against it, staring at him.... - -There was a long silence, with no sound save the clock and the distant -wind. He had never, in their long married life, struck her before. They -both knew, as they stood there staring at one another, that a period had -suddenly been placed, like an iron wall, in their lives. Their relations -could never be the same again. They might be better, they might be -worse—they could never be the same. - -But with him there was a great overwhelming horror of what he had done. -Her white face, her large, shining eyes, the way that her hands lay -against the wall, and the way that her dress fell about her feet, -because her knees were bending under her—drove this home to him. He was -appalled; suddenly that man in him that had been dead for twenty years -was brought to life by that blow. - -“My dear—my dear—don't look at me like that—I did not mean anything—I am -not angry—I am terribly ashamed.... Please—” - -His voice was a trembling whisper. He put out his hand towards her. -She took his hand, and came away from the wall, still looking at him -fixedly. - -“You never struck me before, Freddie,” she said. “At least, you have -never done that. I am so sorry, my dear.” - -Then, very quietly, she put her arms about his neck and kissed him; then -she went slowly out of the room. - -He stood where she had left him motionless. Then he said, still in a -whisper and looking at the curtains that hid the night and the dark -buildings. “Curse the place! It is that—it has done for me....” And -then, as he very slowly sat down and faced the fire, he whispered to the -shadowy room, “I am no good—I am no good at all!” - - - - -CHAPTER X—THE BATTLE OF THE UMBRELLA; “WHOM THE GODS WISH TO -DESTROY....” I. - -DURING the month that followed, the battle raged furiously, and within a -week of that original incident there was no one in the establishment -who had not his or her especial grievance against someone else. In the -Senior common room, at the middle morning hour, the whole staff might -be seen, silent, grave, bending with sheer resolution over the daily -papers, eloquent backs turned to their enemies, every now and again -abstract sarcasm designed for some very concrete resting-place. - -That original umbrella had, long ago, been forgotten, or, rather the -original borrowing of it. It had now become a flag, a banner—something -that stood for any kind of principle that it might serve one's purpose -to support. One hated one's neighbor—well, let any small detail be the -provocation, the battle was the thing. - -Imagine, moreover, the effect on the young generation, assembled to -watch and imitate the thoughts and actions of their elders and betters; -what a delightful and admirable system!—with their Greek accents -and verbs in with their principal parts of savior and dire and their -conclusive decisions concerning vulgar fractions and the imports and -exports of Sardinia, they should learn the delicate art of cutting -your neighbor, of hating your fellow-creatures, of malicious -misconception—all this within so small an area of ground, so slight a -period of time, at so wonderfully inconsiderable an expense. - -The question at issue passed of course speedily to the very smallest boy -in the school, but here there was not so intense a division—there was -indeed scarcely a division at all, because there could not, on the -whole, be two opinions about it. When it came to choosing between Old -Pompous with his stupid manners and his uncertain temper, with all the -custom of his twenty years' stay at the school so that he was simply -a tiresome tradition that present fathers of grown families had once -accepted as a fearful authority—between this and the novel and athletic -Traill, with his splendid football and his easy fellowship... why? -There was nothing more to be said. Why should n't one take Old Pompous's -umbrella? Who was he to be so particular about his property? He would -n't hesitate to take someone else's things if he wanted them.... -Meanwhile there was an encouragement to rebellion amongst all those who -came beneath his discipline—as to the way that he took this, there is -more to be said later. - -But the point about this month is not the question of individual quarrel -and disturbance. Of that there was enough and to spare, but there was -nothing extraordinary about its progress, and every successive term saw -something of the kind: the two questions as to whether Traill should -have taken Perrin's umbrella and whether Isabel Desart should, under the -circumstances, have allowed herself to be engaged to Traill, simply took -the place of other questions that had, in their time, served to rouse -combat. No—the peculiar fact about this month was that at the end of it, -when their quarrels and hatreds should have reached their climax, they -were sunk suddenly almost to the point of disappearance—they were almost -lost and forgotten—and the reason of this was that everyone in the -place, in some cases unconsciously and in nearly every instance -silently, was watching Perrin.... It had become during that time an -issue between two men, and one of those men was passive. It was being -worked out in silence—even the spectators themselves made no comment, -but Mrs. Comber afterwards put it into words when she said that -“Everyone was so afraid that talking about it might make it happen that -no one said anything at all”—and that indeed was the remarkable fact. - -Amongst all the eyes that were turned on the developing incident those -most fitted for our purpose of elucidation belonged to Isabel Desart, -and her experience of it all will do very well for everyone else's -experience of it, because the only difference between herself and -the rest was that she was more acute in her judgment and had a more -discerning intuition. - -In the first place she had very crucially indeed to fight her own -battles. It did not take her a day to discover that every lady in the -place, with the single exception of Mrs. Comber, was, for the time -being at any rate, up in arms against her. She ought not to have allowed -herself to be engaged to Mr. Traill—there were no two opinions about it. -It was not ladylike—she was allying herself, to disorder and tumult, she -was encouraging the stealing of things, and the knocking down of persons -in authority—above all, she was setting herself up, whatever that might -mean: all this was foreshadowed on the very first day in Mrs. Comber's -drawing-room. - -These things did not, in the very least, surprise or dismay Isabel. She -loved a battle—she had never realized before how dearly she loved it, -she gave no quarter and she asked none. She went about with her head up -and her eyes flashing fire—she was quiet unless she was attacked; but so -soon as there were signs of the enemy, the armor would be buckled on -and the trumpet sounded. In a way—and it seemed to her curious when -she looked back upon it—this month of hers was stirring and even rather -delightful. - -But there were other and more serious sides to it. She saw at once that -something had happened in the Comber family, and with all the tenderness -and gentleness that was so wonderfully hers she sought to put it right. -But she soon realized that it had all gone far too deep for any outside -help. She did not know what had occurred on that evening when she had -dined at the Squire's. Mrs. Comber told her nothing—she only begged her -not to speak to Freddie about the umbrella quarrel and not to attempt to -bring Archie to the house, at present at any rate. - -But Mrs. Comber was now a different person—her animated volubility had -disappeared altogether, she went about her house very quietly with a -pale face and tired eyes, and she did not speak unless she was spoken -to. But the change in Freddie Comber was still more marked. Isabel -had never liked him so much before. His harsh dogmatism seemed to have -disappeared. He said very little to anybody, but in his own house at any -rate he was quiet, reserved, and even submissive. Isabel noticed that he -was on the watch to do things for his wife, and sometimes she saw that -his eyes would leave his work and stray about the room as though he were -searching for something. He scarcely seemed to notice her at all, -and sometimes when she spoke to him he would start and look at her -curiously, almost suspiciously, as though he were wondering how much she -knew. He was not kind and attentive to her, as he had been before—she -felt sure that he had now a great dislike for her. All this made her -miserable, and she loved to wonder sometimes what it was that held her -back from speaking to Mrs. Comber about it all—but something prevented -her. - -The masters, she knew, were divided about her. They were, she thought, -more occupied with their own quarrels and disputes than with any -attitude towards herself. At first she was amused by their divided -camps—it all seemed so childish and absurd, and for its very -childishness it could not have a serious conclusion; but as the days -went on and she saw into it all more deeply, the pathos of it caught -her heart and she could have cried to think of what men they might have -been, of the things that they might have done. Some of them seemed to -seek her out now with a courtliness and deference that they had -never shown her before. Birkland, of whom she had always been rather -frightened, spoke to her now whenever there was an opportunity, and his -sharp, sarcastic eyes softened, and she saw the sadness in their gray -depths, and she felt in the pressure of his hands that he wanted now to -be friends with her. White, too, was different now. He said very little -to her, and he was so quiet that for him to speak at all was a wonderful -thing, but there were a few words about his affection for Archie. - -With all of this Isabel got a profound sense of its being her duty to -do something; as far as her own affairs were concerned she was perfectly -able to manage them, and if the matter in dispute had been simply her -engagement to Archie, there would be no difficulty—it was a case -of waiting, and then escaping; but things were more serious than -that—something was in the air, and she knew enough of that life and that -atmosphere to be afraid. But it was not until later than this that she -began to be afraid definitely of Mr. Perrin. - -But this feeling that she had of the necessity of doing something -grew when she perceived the inertia of the others—inertia was perhaps -scarcely the word: it was rather, as the matter advanced, an increasing -impulse to sink their own quarrels and sit back in the chairs and wait -for the result. - -And, with this before her, Isabel set out on a determined campaign, -having for its ultimate issue the hope of possible reconciliation—she -could not put it more optimistically than that—before the end of the -term came. - -It was not at all a desire to do good that drove her—indeed, her -flashing disputes with Mrs. Dormer, her skirmishes with the younger Miss -Madder, were very far away from any evangelistic principles whatever—but -rather some hint of future trouble that was hard to explain. She wished -to prevent things happening, was the way that she herself would have put -it; but that did not hinder her from feeling a natural anxiety that Miss -Madder, Mrs. Dormer, and the rest should have some of their own shots -back before the end of the term was reached. II. - -But she began her campaign with her own Archie, and found him difficult. -Going down the hill by the village on one of those sharp, tightly -drawn days with the horizon set like marble and nothing moving save the -brittle leaves blowing like brown ghosts up and down, she tried to get -him to see the difficulties as she saw them, She attacked him at first -on the question of making peace with Mr. Perrin, and came up at -once against a bristling host of obstinacies and traditions that her -ignorance of public school and university laws had formerly hidden from -her. - -Perrin was a bounder, and young Traill's eyes were cold and hard as he -summed it all up in this sentence. He would do anything in the world -for Isabel, but she did n't probably altogether understand what a fellow -felt—there were things a man couldn't do. She found that the laws of -the Medes and Persians were nothing at all in comparison with the stone -tables of public school custom: “The man was a bounder”—“There were -things a fellow couldn't do.” - -She had not expected him to go and beg for peace—she had not probably -altogether wished him to; but the way that he looked at it all left her -with a curious mixture of feelings: she felt that he was so immensely -young, and therefore to be—most delightful of duties—looked after. -Also she felt, for the first time, all the purpose and obstinacy of his -nature, so that she foresaw that there would in the future between them -be a great many tussles and battles. - -But she was very much cleverer than he was, and dealt with him very -gently, and then suddenly gave him a sharp, little moral rap, and then -kissed him afterwards. She found, in fact, that this trouble with Mr. -Perrin was worrying him dreadfully. He hid it as well as he could, and -hid it on the whole very successfully; but Isabel dragged it all out -and saw that he hated quarreling with anybody, and that he now dimly -discovered that he was the center of a vulgar dispute and that people -were taking sides about him—all this was horrible. - -He also felt very strongly the injustice of it. “I never meant to knock -the fellow down. I never knew I'd taken his beastly umbrella—all this -fuss!”—which was, Isabel thought, so very like a man, because the thing -was done and there was no more to be said about it. He thought a great -deal about her in the matter and was very anxious to stand up for -her; indeed, that was the only aspect of the affair that gave him any -satisfaction—that they should be fighting shoulder to shoulder against -the “low, bounding” world, and he declared, as he looked at her, that he -loved her more and more every day. - -But all of this did not touch on his relations with Perrin, and his eyes -with regard to that gentleman could only look one way—he would not make -advances. - -The more Isabel felt his determination, the more, curiously enough, -she felt Mr. Perrin's pathos. She had not yet arrived at the definite -watching of him that was to come upon them all soon so curiously; but -when she thought of him she thought of Archie's definition of him, and -she realized, as she had not realized before, that that would be a -great many other persons' definition of him also. Whatever he was—cross, -irritable, violent, even wicked—he was, at any rate, lonely, and that -was enough to make Isabel sorry, and more than sorry. - -She could not, of course, make Archie see that. “The fellow's always -wanted to be lonely—thinks himself much too good for other people's -society, that's the fact, and if a man behaves like a beast, he must -expect to be left alone.” - -That did not worry Archie. The whole of his annoyance arose from the -fact that there should be such a fuss. He had never really quarreled -with anyone before—people never did quarrel with him; and now suddenly -here were Comber and West and the little French worm Pons, stiff and -sulky whenever they met him, and Moy-Thompson bullying him whenever he -got the opportunity. - -Of course he wasn't going to stay! he couldn't stay under these -circumstances—but it was all unpleasant and disagreeable. Isabel herself -was only too anxious to take him out of it all as soon as possible. He -wasn't wearing well under it. He had been full of light and sunshine at -the beginning of the term, pleasant to everyone, equable, comfortable, -a splendid creature to be with. Now the boys of his class found that -nothing pleased him, little things roused him to a fury, and he snapped -at people when they spoke to him. With Isabel he was always gentle, but -his eager eyes were tired, and once he wasn't very far away from tears. - -But she did not allow any of these things to worry her. She was proud -with Miss Madder, haughty with Moy-Thompson, gentle with Mrs. Comber, -always amusing and cheerful with Archie. But when she had gone to bed -and was at last alone, she would lie there, trying to puzzle it all out, -afraid of what the future might bring, and praying that she might drag -Archie out of it all before they had damaged him. He was such a boy, and -all this discussion was so new to him; but she felt that she herself was -ninety at least, and she would wonder sometimes that all men's difficult -education seemed to leave them just where they began, which was several -stages earlier than the place where women commenced. Love and death were -very simple things, it seemed to her, beside the tangled daily worries -of people getting along together. Her present feeling was something -akin to Alice's sensation at the Croquet party when the hoops (being -flamingoes) would walk away and climb up trees, and the balls (being -hedge-hogs) would wander off the ground. They were all flamingoes and -hedge-hogs at Moffatt's. III. - -But towards the end of this month, Isabel became suddenly conscious of -Mr. Perrin in a very different way. It was now only three weeks before -the end of term, and in another week examinations would begin. That -something in the atmosphere that signified the coming of examinations -was busy about the place. People were very quiet, and then suddenly in -the most singular way would break out; there was continual quarreling in -the common room, strange rumors were carried of things that people had -said—it was all a question of strain. - -There came, it now being the first week in December, the first day of -snow, and the light, feathery flakes fell throughout the afternoon, and -when the sun set there was a soft, white world with the buildings black -and grim and a sky of hurrying gray cloud. Isabel and Mrs. Comber sat in -Mrs. Comber's little drawing-room over a roaring fire, and there was no -other light in the room. - -Mrs. Comber sat, as she so often sat now, with her chin resting in her -hand, silently staring at the fire. - -Isabel was unhappy; the silent whiteness of the world outside, the -consciousness of Miss Madder's rudeness to her that afternoon, the -trouble that she had seen in Archie's eyes when she had said good night -to him after Chapel, above all, a general sense of strain and nerves -stretched to breaking-point—all this overwhelmed her. She had never felt -so strongly before that she and Archie, if they were to keep anything at -all of their vitality, must escape at once... to-night... to-morrow; it -might be too late. - -She knew that Archie had lost his temper with West that afternoon, that -he had called him a “rotten little counter-jumper,” and that West had -made an allusion to “stealing things.” Where were they all? What were -they all doing to be fighting like this? - -They sat in silence opposite to one another, one on each side of the -fire, and the ticking of the clock, and every now and again a tumbling -coal, were the only sounds. Then suddenly Isabel broke out. - -“Oh! I can't stand it any longer; I feel as though I should go mad. What -is the matter with everybody? Why are we all fighting like this? Oh! -I do want to be pleasant to somebody again, just for a change. For the -last three weeks, ever since that wretched quarrel, there has been no -peace at all.” - -“I know,” Mrs. Comber answered without raising her eyes from the fire; -“I am very tired, too, and it's a good thing there are only three weeks -more of the term, because I 'm sure that somebody would be cutting -somebody's throat if it lasted any longer, and I wouldn't mind very much -if somebody would cut mine.” She gave a little choke in her throat, and -then suddenly her head fell forward into her hands, and she burst into -passionate sobbing. - -Isabel said nothing, but came over to her and knelt down by her chair -and took her other hand. They stayed together in silence for a long -time, and the burning fire flung great shadows on the walls, and the -snow had begun to fall again and rustled very softly and gently against -the window. - -At last Mrs. Comber looked up and wiped her eyes, and tried to smile. - -“Ah! my dear! you are so good to me. I don't know what I should have -done this terrible term if you hadn't been, and now my eyes are a -perfect sight, and Freddie will be coming in; but I could n't help it. -Things only seem to get worse and worse and worse, and I've stood it as -long as I can, and I can't stand it any longer. I think I shall go away -and be a nun or a hospital nurse or something where you 're let alone.” - -“Dear Mrs. Comber;” said Isabel, still holding her hand, “do tell me -about these last few weeks, if it would help you. Of course, I 've seen -that something 's happened between you and Mr. Comber. I can see that -he is most dreadfully sorry about something, and I know that he wants to -make it up. But this silence is worse than anything, and if you 'd only -have it out, both of you, I'm sure it would get all right.” - -“No, dear.” Mrs. Comber shook her head and wiped her eyes. “It's not -that so much. Freddie and I will get all right again, I expect, and even -be better together than we were be-for; but all this business has shown -me, my dear, that I'm a failure. I 've known it really all the time, and -I used to pretend that if one was nice enough to people one could n't -be altogether a failure, because they wanted one to like them—and that's -the truth. Nobody wants me to like them, and I'm the loneliest woman in -the world. I'm not grumbling about it, because I suppose I'm careless -and silly and untidy, but I don't think anyone's wanted friends quite so -badly as I have, and some people have such a lot. I used to think it was -all just accidents, but now I know it's really me; and now you 're going -to be married there's an end of you, the only person I had.” - -“Archie and I,” said Isabel softly, “will care for you to the end of -your days, and you will come and stay with us, won't you? And you know -that Freddie loves you. Why, I 've seen him looking at you during these -last weeks as though he could die for you, and then he's been afraid -to say anything. It's only this horrid place that has got in the way so -dreadfully.” - -Mrs. Comber caught her hand eagerly. “Do you really think so, my -dear? Oh! if I could only think that, because I have fancied he's been -different lately, and he's such a dear when he likes to be and is n't -worried about his form; but things are always worse at examination time, -and I always pray that the two weeks may be got through as quickly as -possible; and something dreadful did happen the other day, and I know -he was ashamed of himself, the poor dear.... Perhaps things will be all -right.” - -Mrs. Comber gave a great sigh and looked a little more cheerful. Then, -after a pause, she began again, but a little doubtfully: “You know, -Isabel dear, there's something else. I don't want to frighten you, but -Mrs. Dormer noticed it as well, and I know it's silly of me, but I don't -quite like it—” - -“Like what?” said Isabel. “Well, Mr. Perrin; he's been looking so queer -ever since that quarrel with your Archie. I daresay you haven't noticed -anything, and I daresay it may be all my own imaginations, and I'm sure -in a place like this one might imagine anything—” - -“How does he look queer,” said Isabel quietly. - -“Well, it's his eyes, I suppose, and the things the boys say about him. -You know, my dear, I've wondered since whether perhaps he didn't care -about you rather a great deal, and whether that isn't another reason for -his disliking Archie—” - -“Care about me?” said Isabel laughing; “why, no, of course not. He's -only spoken to me once or twice.” - -“Well,” said Mrs. Comber, “I've seen him looking at you in the strangest -way in chapel. And his face has got so white and thin and drawn, I'm -really quite sorry for the poor man. And his eyes are so odd, as though -he was trying to see something that wasn't there. And the boys say that -he's so strange in class sometimes and stops suddenly in the middle of -a lesson and forgets where he is; and Mr. Clinton was telling me that he -never speaks to Archie, but sometimes when Archie's there he gets very -white and shakes all over and leaves the room. I only want you to warn -Archie to be careful, because when a man's lonely like that and begins -to think about things, he might do anything.” - -“Why, what could he do?” Isabel said, with a little catch in her breath. - -“Well, I don't know, dear,” Mrs. Comber said rather uncertainly. “Only -when examinations come on they do seem to get into the men's heads so, -and it's only that I thought that Archie might be careful and ready if -Mr. Perrin seemed odd at all...” - -Mrs. Comber left it all very uncertain, and as they sat silently in the -room with the fire turning from a roaring blaze into a golden cavern and -the shadows on the wall growing smaller and smaller as the fire fell, -Isabel seemed to feel the cold black and white of the world outside -gather ominously about her. - -She said good night very quietly, and the two women clung to each other -a moment longer than usual, as though they did not wish to leave each -other. - -“At any rate,” said Isabel, “whatever else this place may do, it can't -alter our being together. You 've always got me, you know.” - -But from this moment Isabel was afraid. Perhaps her nerves were -strained, perhaps she saw a great deal more than there was to be seen; -but she longed for the end of the term with a passionate eagerness, and -she could not sleep at nights. - -And then, curiously, on the very next morning Mr. Perrin came and spoke -to her. - -She always afterwards remembered him as she saw him that day. She was -just turning out of the black gate to go down the hill to the village; -there was a very pale blue sky; the ground was white with gray and -purple shadows, and the houses were brown and sharply edged, as though -cut out of paper, in the distance; the hills were a gray-white against -the sky. He came towards her very slowly, and she saw that he wanted -to speak to her, so she stopped and waited for him. When he came up -to her—with his gown hanging loosely about him and his heavy, black -mortar-board, with his thin, haggard cheeks, and staring eyes, with his -straggly, unkept mustache—she had a moment of ungovernable fear. She -could give no reason for it, but she knew that her impulse was to turn -and run away, anywhere so that she might escape from him. - -Then she controlled herself and turned and faced him, and smiled and -held out her hand. - -She could see him staring beyond her, over her shoulder, with eyes that -didn't see her at all. She saw that his hand was shaking. - -“How do you do, Mr. Perrin? I haven't seen you for quite a long time. -Isn't this snow delightful? If it will only stay like this.” - -Suddenly he came quite close to her, looking into her eyes; he grasped -her hand and held it. - -“I 've been wanting to say...” he said in an odd voice, and there he -stopped and stood staring at her. - -“Yes,” she said gently. - -His throat was moving convulsively, and he put his hand up to his face -with a helpless gesture and pulled his mustache. - -“I've wanted to say—um, ah—to congratulate you...” - -He cleared his throat, and suddenly she saw tears in his eyes. - -“Oh! thank you!” she said impulsively, coming up to him and putting her -hand on his arm. “Thank you so very much!” and then she could say no -more. - -He moved his arm away, and his eyes passed her again, out of the distant -horizon. Then he said very rapidly, as though he were reciting a speech -that he had learnt, “I wanted to congratulate you on your engagement. I -hope you 'll be very happy. I'm sure you will. I'm afraid I 'm a -little late in my good wishes. I'm afraid I'm a little late. Yes. Good -morning!” - -Then, before she could say any more, he had moved away and gone down the -path. - -As she watched his black gown waving a little behind him she knew that -her vague fears of the night before had taken definite form. - - - - -CHAPTER XI—MR. PERRIN SEES DOUBLE I. - -MEANWHILE, many things had happened to Mr. Perrin during this month. On -that night after Clinton had told him about Miss Desart's engagement -to Traill, he did not go to bed for many hours, but sat over his black -grate without moving until the morning. He did not know until this had -happened to him how greatly he had valued his dreams. To every man in -middle life there comes a day when he sees clearly and pitilessly that -he has missed ambitions, or, if he has gained them, that there were -other ambitions that would have been more profitable of pursuit; and -then, if the rest of his days are to be worthily and honorably spent, he -must make reckoning with other things that have perhaps no glitter nor -promise, but will give him enough—life has no compensation for cynics. - -In that black night, the darkest night of his life, Perrin saw that -his last claim to that chance to which he had clung from his earliest -boyhood, was gone. At first, in the blind pathos of his disappointment, -it seemed to him that she had promised to marry him and had left him at -the altar. A great wave of self-pity swept over him, and he sat with his -head in his hands, and the tears trickled through his thin fingers. The -things that he could have done had she been faithful to him!—that was -the way he put it. He saw now scenes that had occurred between them. He -had pleaded his love, and she had accepted him; her head had rested on -his breast, and, in that very room, he had held her and kissed her and -stroked her hair. - -And then, slowly, as the room grew colder and the faint gray dawn came -in at the window, he knew that that was not true; she had never cared -about him, she had scarcely spoken to him; how could she care for a man -like him—that sort of creature? - -What had God meant by making a man like that? It was His game, perhaps; -it pleased Him perhaps to have some ridiculous animal there that other -men might sport with it—other beardless boys like Traill.... - -He felt that he would like to take his revenge on God. He would show -God that he was not the kind of man to be played with like that—he would -mock at Him and show that he didn't care, that he was not afraid—ah! but -he was afraid, terribly afraid. He had always been afraid since those -days when, a very small boy in short trousers, he had sat listening -to the clergyman who had painted pictures of hell with such lurid and -wonderful accuracy. - -God was like that—He took away from you all the things that made life -worth living, and then punished you with eternal fire afterwards because -you resented His behavior. - -Mr. Perrin was not crying now, because his head was aching so badly that -the pain of it prevented any tears. He was sitting with his eyes very -large and bright and his cheeks very white and drawn. When his head -ached, it always meant that that other Mr. Perrin whose appearances he -had now so long attempted to control came creeping out—that other Mr. -Perrin who did not want him to have his chance, that other Mr. Perrin -whom he did not want his friends to see. - -On this night for the first time in his life that other Mr. Perrin -seemed to have a concrete appearance and form. He was standing, -Mr. Perrin fancied, somewhere in the corner of the room, and he was -watching. He was wearing the same clothes, and he had the same features, -but it was an evil face—all the eyes and nose and mouth and ears had -gone wrong. Mr. Perrin had kept him in control so long; but now at last -he had broken out, and perhaps he would never go away again. - -Mr. Perrin was dreadfully afraid that he had come to stay. - -Then, as the minutes passed, Mr. Perrin was conscious that there was -something that this other Mr. Perrin wanted him to do. It had some -connection with that young Traill. Mr. Perrin was conscious that now, as -he thought of him, he had no anger in his brain about young Traill. No, -there was nothing to be angry about—of course not—no; but he knew that -there was something that the other Mr. Perrin thought that he ought to -do to young Traill. What was it? - -Then, very slowly, as though he were awaking out of a bad dream, Mr. -Perrin pulled himself together. That other Mr. Perrin passed from -the room, and the cold gray dawn crept across the floor. He was very -desolate and very unhappy. He thought perhaps he would kill himself, and -so end it all. What did people do? They hung themselves, or they shot -themselves, or they poisoned themselves. No, he knew that he would be -afraid to do any of those things. He was afraid of the pain and also, in -an inconsequent way, of the sight that he would look afterwards. - -There came to him the curious, strange idea that perhaps this was his -great chance—the chance that he had been waiting for all his life. -Perhaps God intended to knock him down as far as He could, so as to -give him the opportunity of rising. Supposing he rose now, supposing -he showed them that he did not care about Miss Desart or young Traill, -supposing he won a fine position and did magnificently... but then, of -course, it was absurd; after twenty years in Moffatt's one did not “do” -magnificently anywhere. - -No, he was no good—he was done for. He thought, as he heard the clock -strike five, he would go to bed. And then he lay there, staring at the -yellow flowers on the wall-paper. There were five in a row, and then -four, and then three, and then two, and then five again.... They were -ugly flowers. He wanted Miss Desart! he wanted Miss Desart! he wanted -Miss Desart! He bit the pillow and lay with his face buried in it, his -thin, sharp shoulders heaving.... He wanted Miss Desart!... - -His misery came upon him now in great clouds, and it buffeted him and -enveloped him, and left him at last weak and shaking. - -Young Traill had done this—young Traill was his enemy... young Traill! -He hated him, and would do him harm if he could. - -And then, across the gray floor, outlined against the yellow paper -flowers, he saw once more the gray figure of the other Mr. Perrin. II. - -But when the morning came, and as the days passed, he found that it all -resolved itself into an effort to keep control. This was very hard. When -he had been a small boy there had been a picture that used to hang in -his mother's dining-room. It was a gray picture of a skeleton that sat -with a grin on its ghastly face on a huge iron chest studded with great -black nails. The lid was raised a little, and from under it peeped the -eyes of some wretched man, and over the edge there hung a grasping, -wrenching hand. Someone was in there, someone was trying to get out, and -the skeleton was sitting on the box.... - -It was like that now with Mr. Perrin; there was something in him that -was trying to get out, and he was determined that it should not. He -found at once that he could not bear to be in the same room with Traill, -and as the days advanced this feeling did not decrease. The feeling -inside him that he must not let out was always stronger and more violent -when Traill was there. Of course they did not speak to one another, -but it was something more active than mere silent avoidance. They -had struggled on the floor together, struggled before Comber and -Birkland—Perrin would not forget that. He remembered it as an act of -faith and said to himself a great many times. He always found that when -he was in the room with Traill something seemed to drag him across the -floor towards him, and he had to hold himself back. - -This was all very difficult, and he found it very hard to keep his mind -on his form. It was more necessary than ever to keep his mind on his -form, because he fancied that there was a new spirit abroad amongst -them. They must, of course, have heard all about the quarrel, and -he thought that when he was with them they laughed at him and mocked -amongst themselves. They had always done that of course, but now there -was an added reason. - -There was one thing that they did at the Lower School that he always -hated. When the bell rang at five minutes to one for luncheon, the -master who was on duty was supposed to station himself at the door -of the hall and look at the boys' hands, as the boys filed in, to see -whether they were clean. Perrin had always hated doing this; it had -seemed to him most undignified, and the sight of fifty pairs of hands -raised to his eyes, one after the other—hands that were ill-kept, -bitten, and ragged, and torn—this had been, in some bidden way, -irritating. Now it was much more irritating, so that when it was his -week on duty and this horde of boys passed him, raising their hands, -as it seemed to him, with insolence and levity, he wanted to scream, to -beat them all down, to run amok amongst them, to trample until all the -hands were broken and bleeding. - -Garden Minimus had often been turned back for having dirty hands. He -used to try to slip through with the crowd, and Perrin had called him -up, and he had come with a twinkling smile, and his hands had been very -inky. Then Perrin, with apparent austerity, but in reality with a kindly -eye, had sent him back to wash. But now the boy made no attempt to -escape, but with a grave, serious face passed slowly along; his hands -were always beautifully clean—he did not look at Perrin. This was, of -course, a very small affair. - -But afterwards, when they had all passed in, when they stood silently -behind their forms and he began the Latin grace and at the end “per -Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum” and a great clatter of forms being -dragged out and people sitting down and the hum of voices—then he wanted -to run amongst them and strike their stupid faces, but he knew that he -must not. - -One day at the very beginning he had suddenly found that he was alone -in the Junior-Common room with Traill, and Traill had begun to speak to -him. - -Traill was standing away from him at the window, and he scarcely turned -his head, but over his shoulder in a gruff voice: “I say, Perrin, isn't -this rather rot, our quarreling like this? I hate not to be speaking to -a fellow—I'm sorry if I did things, but you know—” - -And Perrin, with his head a little lowered and his hands swinging, had -moved towards him, making a curious little noise in his throat, and -Traill had seen his face and stepped back against the window. - -But Perrin had remembered that picture in his mother's dining-room. No! -that man must not get out—he must at all costs be kept in his box. And -so he had turned and left the room without saying anything. - -Traill did not try to speak to him again. - -With his form during these days Perrin was very quiet. It was remarked -afterwards how quiet he had been. He was never angry. Boys did bad work, -and he did not seem to mind, but he looked at them in a strange way -and said, “Go back, and do it again—do it again,” as though he were not -thinking of what he said. - -Perhaps he did not altogether realize them during those days, but rather -thought of them as faces and boots. There were faces in a row, white -faces, and then there was a long strip of wooden desk, scarred with -ink, and then there were boots, broad-toed boots, sometimes with laces -hanging down, stupid things like toads. - -He had taught the things that he taught so often that it needed no -effort now to think of them. When you began with numbers on the board, -other numbers followed, and then an answer, and a face got five marks if -it was right—that was all. He never spoke to Garden Minimus if he could -help it. He did not analyze his silence—it was merely a fact that he did -not wish to have Garden Minimus's face brought too close to his own... -it reminded him of things that hurt. - -But, on the whole, his form did not notice any delightful difference -except that there was a visible slackening of authority. One could do -things with pens and ink and other people's books more often than had -hitherto been the case, and Somerset-Walpole perhaps felt the difference -more severely than anyone else.... That was really all that there was to -say about his form. - -It was perhaps about a week after the Battle of the Umbrella broke out -that Perrin noticed two things. The first thing that he noticed was -that he saw Traill when Traill wasn't there. This was very odd and very -provoking. It could not be said with real accuracy that he saw him, -because he was always just round the corner and out of his eye. One -morning during an Algebra hour, sitting at his desk, he suddenly felt -that Traill was standing just inside the door. It was very odd of Traill -to do this, because he ought, by rights, to have been teaching at the -Upper School—moreover, the door had apparently made no sound when it -opened and none of the boys seemed to notice his entrance; also Mr. -Perrin could not be quite sure, because he was not looking at the door -at all but at the board in front of him. He knew exactly how Traill was -standing, and at last, his motionless silence was so irritating that he -turned round sharply and looked at the door, but Traill was not there. - -The silence that was between them, the elaborate prevention of -conversation when they were together at meals or in a room, came slowly -to Perrin as an added impertinence. He knew now that he hated Traill -with all his heart and soul, but that was a very mild way of putting it. -It was not hatred that he felt when he found Traill's face opposite -him at dinner: it was something more active than that. It was as though -someone at his elbow was urging him to leap across the table, dragging -the cloth with him as he went, and to catch Traill's throat... and to do -things; but he knew that he must not, because something must be kept -in a box. And the other thing that he noticed about this time was -that people were talking about him. This might almost be called the -Irritation of the Closed Door, because on every occasion that he saw -a closed door—and they were very many—he knew that there were people -behind it who were talking about him. Sometimes he suddenly opened, very -softly, a door and looked, and although there was, as a rule, no one -in the room, he was sure that they were hiding in cupboards and behind -chairs. Once when he opened a door suddenly like that, the stout Miss -Madden was alone in the room, sewing, and when she saw him she dropped -her work and screamed, which was foolish of her. - -But they were all of them always talking about him, and he would like to -have heard what they said. He wondered what Miss Desart said—he was sure -that she would be kind—and he stared at her very hard in chapel, because -he saw her so very little at other times, and because he would like to -know what she was thinking about. He would like to know whether it was -about the same things as his things—and so he stared at her in a curious -way. - -And then one evening he suddenly discovered that it was the day on which -he wrote to his mother. He had omitted to write to her last week for the -first time for very many years, because he had forgotten, and she had -written saying how much she had missed it—so he must not forget it -again. - -He had had a very trying day, and the man in the box had more nearly -broken out than ever before, so that at first it was very hard to think -of his mother at all. But he stood in the middle of the room with his -hands to his throbbing head, and he made in his mind a little picture -of her sitting in her lace cap and black gown, waiting for a letter from -him. He sat down in his chair and lit his lamp and took out his pen and -paper and began, as he had begun for a great many years: - -“Dear old lady... - -Then suddenly he thought that Traill was in the room, standing, as he -did now, just inside the door. He turned sharply in his chair and held -the lamp up towards the door, but there was no one there. He sat with -his head between his hands and cleared his mind of everything except his -mother; and gradually, as he sat there, all that strange state that -had been about him during these days fell from him, and he regained his -clear vision—he began to write as he always did:— - -“...I didn't write last week, because I had so much to do. I really -didn't have time, and you know how busy we get during these days with -the examinations coming on and everything. - -“I'm very well, except that I have these headaches—nothing at all, and -I'm taking these liver pills that you told me of. I hope you 're all -right, and that Dr. Sanders comes to see you every week. Keeping warm's -the thing, old lady, with this weather, and that shawl that Miss Bennett -gave you is the very thing—mind you wear it, and don't sit in draughts. -I'm all right...” - -And then the pen dropped from his fingers, and his head fell between -his hands. He wanted to tell her about Miss Desart, that she needn't be -afraid now of his marrying anyone, that he was never going to marry.... -His mind was very clear now. It was like a moor when the mists have -lifted away from it.... His unhappiness came all about him and held him -to the ground. He did not hate Traill—Traill could not help it; but he -wanted her—oh! he wanted her so dreadfully. - -He slipped on to his knees on the ground, and he was terribly troubled -so that his back shook. He began with desperation, as though it were his -last hold on life, to pray. - -“Oh! God, God, God!... Help me!... Do not let me go back again to that -state that I have just been in. I cannot hold myself when I am like -that. I do not know what I am doing or thinking. But it is all so -hard—there are so many little things—there is no time!... They will not -let me alone. Oh, God! give me my chance, give me my chance! Give me -someone to love; I am so terribly alone... nobody wants me. Oh, God! do -not let me go back to that darkness again.... I am so afraid of what I -may do...” - -But at last exhaustion took him, there on the floor, and he slept with -his head on his arm. - -And suddenly he awoke in the middle of the night and found himself -there—and it was all very dark. He rose to his feet and was terribly -frightened, because there, a gray figure against the fireplace, was the -other Mr. Perrin—and he knew that God had not answered his prayer, and -he cursed God and stumbled to his bed. III. - -And after that, things, for him, developed in an amazing way. He was -quite sure now that God hated him. - -Now that he was sure of that, he need not care so much about keeping -that box closed—he was damned anyhow. - -Traill now took complete possession of his mind. He never thought of -anyone else, and it was exactly as though an iron weight was pressing -on his head, shutting him down. He must get rid of that iron weight, -because it was so disagreeable and prevented him thinking; but he was -sure that it would not go until he had got rid of Traill: therefore -Traill must go. - -He did not know how Traill would be likely to go, but he began to -consider it.... - -These days before the examinations began were very difficult for -everybody, and Perrin began that hideous “getting behind-hand” that made -things accumulate so that there seemed no chance of ever catching up. -There were all the term's marks to be added up before the examinations -began, there were trial papers and test questions to be set, and -therefore a great many papers to be corrected. He found that he was not -able to keep at it for very long at a time, but would sit in his chair -with his hands folded in front of him and think of—Traill—and then he -would find that the papers were not corrected and that there were others -to be done, and they would be in dingy piles about his room—sometimes -a pile would slip from the table on to the floor and would lie there -scattered, and he would feel his rage rising so that if he had not, with -all his force, kept it down he would have rushed screaming about his -room. - -But with the whole staff this irritation was at work, and Perrin -welcomed it because it amused him, and because it seemed to him in tune -with his own moods. Always this week before the examinations was a very -difficult one, but now, this term, it was worse than it had ever been -before. - -The place was badly understaffed, and always at this time the work was -multiplied so that any spare hours that there had been before were now -filled to overflowing. Also the examination scheme had now appeared and, -whether by design or not, Moy-Thompson always arranged it so that one -or two men seemed to have scarcely any work at all, and the others -naturally had a great deal more than they could do. The quarrels that -had broken out over the umbrella incident had developed until there -was very little to prevent physical struggle. It happened that on this -occasion, West was the person who was let off easily by the examination -list, and he was not the kind of man to allow his advantage to pass -without comment. - -Perrin passed a considerable amount of time now in the Senior common -room. He never talked to anyone, but would sit in a dark corner by the -window and watch them all. The funniest thoughts came to him as he sat -there: for instance, he fancied that it would be pleasant, when they -were not watching, to crawl under the table and bite White's legs—it -would be amusing to spring suddenly from behind on to Comber's back, -and to strip all the clothes from him until he was stark naked, and must -run, screaming, from the room—or to twist Birk-land's ears round -and round until they were tom and hung.... All these things would be -pleasant to do, but he sat in his corner and said nothing. - -At last the day before the examinations arrived, and they were nearly -all gathered in the Senior common room in the half-hour before Chapel. - -Perrin, with his white face and untidy hair, watched them from his -corner. - -“It will be very pleasant,” West said, smiling a little, “to have -that third hour off all through this week. I can't think, Comber, why -Moy-Thompson's given you all that extra Latin to do—I—” - -“For God's sake,” Comber broke out furiously, “stop it! Aren't we all -sick to death with hearing of your beastly good luck? Don't we all know -that the whole thing's about as unfair as it is possible for anything to -be? Just keep quiet about it if you can.” - -“Oh, of course, Comber,” said West. “You grudge a man any bit of -luck that he may have. It's just like you. I never knew anything more -selfish. If you'd had an hour off yourself, you 'd have let us know -about it all right.” - -“Well, stop talking about it anyhow, West,” said Dormer. “Leave it -alone. Can't you see that we 're all as tired out as we can be? We've -had enough fighting this term to last us a century.” - -With common consent they seemed to sink their private differences in a -common thought of that strange, silent man sitting behind them. - -They all drew closer together. The pale gas-light fell on their faces, -and they were all white and tired, with heavy, dark marks under their -eyes. - -With their dark gowns, their long white hands, their pale faces, their -heavy eyes, they moved silently about the room and gathered at last in -a cluster by the fire, and stood and sat silently without a word. Only -Perrin, hidden in the shadow behind them, did not move. - -Then suddenly Birkland, who was standing a little away from the rest -with his back against the wall, spoke. - -“You're right, Dormer. We've fought enough this term to fill a great -many years. We 're a wretched enough crew.” - -He paused; but no one spoke, and no one moved. - -“I wonder sometimes,” he went on, “how long we are going to stand it. -Most of us have been here a great many years—most of us have had our -hopes broken a great many years ago—most of us have lost our pluck—” -Perhaps he expected a vehement denial, because he paused; but no one -spoke, and no one moved. “This term has been worse than any other since -I have been here. We have all been very near doing things as well as -thinking them. I wonder if you others have ever thought, as I have -thought sometimes, that we have no right to be here?” - -“How do you mean,” said Comber slowly, “no right?” - -“Well, we were not always like this. We were not always fighting -and cursing like beasts. We were not always without any decency or -friendliness or kindliness. We did not always have a man over us who -used us like slaves, because he knew that we were afraid to give him -notice and go. I was a man myself once. I thought that I was going to do -things—we all thought that we were going to do things. Look at the lot -of us, now—” He paused again, but there was still silence. “They say to -us—the people outside—that it is our own fault, that other men have -made a fine thing of teaching, that there are fine schools where life is -splendid, that we have the interests of the boys under us in our hands. -I know that—we all know that there are splendid schools and splendid -lives; but what is that to do with us?... Do you know the kind of man -that we have got over us? Do they know that every time that we have -tried to do decently, it has been crushed out of us by that devil? Not a -minute is our own; even in the holidays we are pursued. Let others come -and try and see what they will make of it.” - -A little stir like a wind passed through the listeners, but no one -spoke. Birkland was leaning forward; his eyes were on fire, his hands -waving in the air. - -“But it is not too late—it is not too late, I tell you. Let us break -from it, let us go for the governors in a body and tell them that unless -they improve our conditions, unless they remove Moy-Thompson, unless -they give us more freedom, we will leave—in a body. There is a chance if -we can act together, and better, far better, that we break stones in the -road, that we die free men than this... that this should go on.” - -His voice was almost a shout. “My God!” he cried, “think of it! Think of -our chance! We are not dead yet. There is time. Let us act together and -break free!—free!” - -He had caught them, he had held them. They saw with his eyes. They moved -together. Cries broke from them. - -“You 're right, Birkland; you 're right. We won't stand it. It's our -last chance.” - -“Now! Let us go now!” - -“Let us go and face him!” - -Birkland held them all with his uplifted hand. “Now or never!” he cried. - -Suddenly the door opened. Into the midst of their noise there came the -voice of the school-sergeant, cold, unmoved—the voice of a thousand -years of authority: “The headmaster would like to see Mr. White as soon -as possible.” - -It was the test. They all realized it as they turned to White to see -what he would do. - -For a moment he stood there, tall, gaunt, haggard, his eyes held -by Birkland's, the fire dying from them. For a moment he seemed to -hesitate, his lips moved as though he would speak—then, with a helpless -gesture of his hand, he moved slowly, with hanging head, down the room, -and passed out through the door. - -There was silence, and then from his chair in the dark corner Perrin -laughed. - - - - -CHAPTER XII—MR. PERRIN WALKS IN SLEEP I. - -WITH examinations there comes a new element into the life of the term—it -is an element of triumph in so far as it marks the approaching end of -an impossible situation; it is, an element of despair in so far as it -provides an overpowering number of answers, differing in the minutest -particulars, to the same questions; and is even an element of romance, -because it heralds the appearance of a final order in which boys will -beat other boys, generally in a surprising and unforeseen manner. But -whatever it means it also tightens to a higher pitch any situation that -there may have been before, so that anything that seemed impossible now -appears incredible; the days are like years, and the hours, filled with -the empty scratching of pens and the rubbing of blotting-paper, stretch -infinitely into the distance and hide release. - -Their effect on everyone on the present occasion was to force -extravagantly the longing that everything might soon be over, that the -situation couldn't stand the kind of strain that was being put upon -it unless the curtain were rung down as soon as possible. Everyone was -hideously busy with long periods of doing nothing except the aforesaid -attention to pens and blotting-paper. Mr. Moy-Thompson had, moreover, -invented a little scheme which always provided, as far as he was -concerned, the pleasantest and most happy results. This was a plan -whereby every master set and corrected the papers of some other -master's form and then wrote a report on them. Here obviously was a most -admirable opportunity for the paying off of old scores, as a bad report -always led, next term, to a miserable period of bullying and baiting, -with the hapless master who had incurred it in the rôle of victim. -Therefore, if, as was usually the case, your especial enemy was -correcting the papers of your form and would write a report on them, -unless something were done to appease him, you were, during the whole of -the next term, delivered over mercilessly to the Rev. Moy-Thompson. You -might perchance appease your enemy, or you might yourself be examining -his form, in which case you had every opportunity of a pleasant retort. -At any rate, this plan invariably inflamed any hostilities that might -already be in existence and resulted in the provision of at least half a -dozen victims for Mr. Moy-Thompson's games on a later occasion. - -For once, however, these examinations came to Perrin as very vague and -misty affairs. This was not usual with him. As a rule they pleased him, -because he could hold over hoys who had been rude to him during the term -the terror of being detained all the first day of the holidays—also he -considered that he was ingenious in the invention of pleasant Algebraic -conundrums and fascinating, derisive questions in Trigonometry that -prevented any possible solution. The devising of these gave him, as a -rule, pleasure and amusement, but this term he could not face them. - -He set his papers, in an odd, abstracted way, with questions from -earlier papers, and then he sat with his hands folded in front of him -and waited. There was only one subject now in the whole world, and -all these curious boys, these strange, visionary class-rooms, these -appalling noises, and then these equally appalling silences, only -diverted his attention and prevented his thinking. - -There were always three of them now—himself, the other Mr. Perrin, -and Traill—they always went about together. When he was taking an -examination and was sitting at his desk, isolated, by the wall, the -other Mr. Perrin, a gray, thin figure, was behind him, looking into the -room, and Traill stood, as he always did now, just inside the door, but -away from Mr. Perrin's eye, because when he turned round and looked at -him he always slipped, in the cleverest way, out of the door. - -Perrin wondered that other people didn't notice that he was accompanied -by these persons, but probably they were all too occupied with their own -affairs. Of course Traill must be got rid of—one couldn't possibly have -anyone whom one hated as much as that always with one. Sometimes it was -curiously confused, because there were two Traills—a Traill who moved -about and spoke to people (although never to Perrin), and the Traill who -stood always by the door and never moved at all except to slip away. - -Perrin was quite clear in his own mind now that he hated Traill very -much indeed, but he could not be very definitely sure of any reasons. -There had been something once about an umbrella, and there was something -else about Miss Desart, and there was even something about Garden -Minimus; but none of these things were fixed very resolutely in his -mind, and his thoughts slipped about like goldfish in a pond. - -It was quite certain, however, that Traill must not be allowed to go -on like this, because he was a nuisance, and Perrin would sit for long -hours whilst he was superintending examinations thinking about this and -what he could do. - -There were moments, even hours, when the consciousness of the two -figures at his side and the weighty burden of his decision left him. He -saw suddenly as clearly as he had ever seen, and he was frightened; it -was like waking from an evil dream, and just when he was gazing hack at -it, frightened, even terrified, it would come slipping about him again, -and the world would once more grow dark. - -At last he was frightened at these intervals, because he seemed to -realize then how dismal and unhappy it all was, and also how dangerous -it was. - -Once, during one of these clear moments, he was standing, a melancholy -figure, by the iron gate, looking down the Brown Hill road, and Garden -Minimus passed him. Perrin stopped him, and then when he saw the boy's -round face and shining eyes, a little frightened now, and the mouth -quivering a little, he had nothing to say. - -At last he said, “Oh!—Ah!—Garden—I haven't seen much of you lately. How -do the exams go?” - -Perrin had an absurd impulse to take the boy by the arm and ask him to -be kind to him. He was so dreadfully unhappy. - -But Garden was very frightened; he choked a little in his throat, and -his eyes moved frantically down the white road as though appealing for -help. - -“Oh! very well, sir, thank you, sir—I—I could n't do the geography this -morning, sir.” - -There was a long pause. Garden gave frightened glances up and down the -road. - -“When do you go for—um, ah,—your holidays, Garden?” - -Garden looked up in Mr. Perrin's face, and suddenly, young though he -was, felt that Mr. Perrin was, as he put it afterwards, “awfully sick -about something—not ratty, you know, but jolly near blubbing.” - -He had, with his friends, noticed that Perrin was “jolly odd” during -these days, but now this thought struck him to the extinction of every -other feeling. He had a sudden desire to help—after all, Old Pompous had -been beastly decent to him—and then there came an overwhelming sensation -of shyness, as though his feminine relations had suddenly appeared and -claimed him in the company of his contemporaries. He looked down, rubbed -one boot against the other, and then suddenly, with a murmured word -about “having to meet some fellows—beastly late,” was off. - -Perrin watched him go and then turned slowly back towards the school -buildings. The shadows were creeping about him again. He felt that the -other Mr. Perrin was behind him. He walked stealthily, a little as a cat -prowls.... - -About this time he took great curiosity in Traill's bedroom. He had -never been inside it—he knew only that plain brown door with marks near -the bottom of it where the paint had been scratched. - -But he sat now in his room and thought about it. He sat in a chair by -the windows and looked across the room at his own door, at the square -black lock and the shining brass handle. It was of course very easy -to turn, and then he would be inside. It would be interesting to be -inside—he would know then where the bed was, and the washing-stand, and -the chairs... it might be useful to know. - -He went to his own door and opened it, and looked very cautiously down -the passage; there was no one there—it was all very silent. The sun of -the December afternoon flooded the cold passage, and from downstairs the -shouts of some boys floated up.... There were no other sounds. - -He walked very softly down the passage, his head lowered, his hands -behind his back. He stopped outside Traill's bedroom door and listened -again—he was surprised to hear that his heart was beating very loudly -indeed. He pushed the door open and looked inside. The bed was near the -window—the sun flooded the room and shone on the silver hair-brushes and -the china basin and jug. - -It was a very simple room, and the bed took up most of it; there was one -photograph. - -He went very softly up to it and saw that it was a photograph of Miss -Desart—Miss Desart, smiling, out of doors with the sun on her dress. - -He bent towards the photograph, over the china basin, and kissed it. -Then he went out, closing the door softly behind him. III. - -And the week wore away, and Monday came round. Thursday was Speech-Day, -and on Friday everybody went home; all marks and form lists had to be in -the headmaster's room on Wednesday night before nine. - -Perrin, on Monday evening, was vaguely conscious that he had corrected -no papers at all. They lay about his room now in stacks—none of them -were corrected. Some masters posted results as they corrected the -papers; other masters left all the results until the end. It was not -considered strange that Perrin had posted no results. - -But he knew as he looked at these white sheets that he ought to have -done something with them. He stood in the middle of the room with his -hands to his head and wondered what he ought to have done. Why, of -course, he ought to correct them—he ought to say what was good and what -was bad. - -He took up a large pile of them, and they almost slipped from his -fingers because there were so many. He found that it was a paper on -French Grammar. He looked at the slip with the questions. - -“I. Give the preterite (singular only) and past participle of donner, -recevoir, laisser, s'asseoir...” - -Ah! s'asseoir was a hard one—he had always found that that was -difficult. He turned over the page: - -J'eu, tu eus, il eut—that looked wrong.. . - -Again, here was Simpson Minor—“Je fus, tu fus, il fut”—surely that was -confused in some way. - -The papers at the bottom slipped: he bent to prevent them falling, and -all of them tipped over. They rose in a cloud about him, a white cloud, -flying into the air, sailing to the other end of the room, diving under -the table and into the fireplace, and a great white pile lay-scattered -wildly on the floor. - -The silly papers stared at him: - -“Je dors tous...” - -“Il faut que...” - -“I used to love my mother, but now I love my aunt...” - -“Rule for the conjunctive and disjunctive pronouns...” - -And then, Simpson Minor: “Je fus, tu fus...” - -He was infuriated with their silly, stupid faces. They lay there on the -floor, staring up at him and making no attempt whatever to move. He was -maddened by their impassivity. He began to stamp on them, and then to -trample on them—he rushed about the room, uttering little cries and -wildly stamping... . - -And then something suddenly seemed to go in his brain, and he stopped -still. What was he doing? He bent feebly to pick them up, but he could -not collect them. He sat down at his table with his head in his hands. - -Then he gave up trying to correct them. After all, they were not the -important thing—the important thing was between himself and Traill; that -was what he must think about. - -This was Monday, and on Friday everyone would go away. He would go away, -he supposed, with the rest: of course he would go to his mother. Traill -would go away with Miss Desart... would he? - -The other Mr. Perrin leant over and whispered in his ear. - -It was from this moment that Mr. Perrin came to the definite decision -that something must be done before Friday. He made five black marks with -a pencil on the yellow wallpaper in his bedroom, and he would lie hack -on his bed at night, staring up at the marks whilst his candle guttered -on the chair at his side. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, -Friday... Monday passed, and he scratched another mark across the mark -that he had already made. Tuesday passed, and that he also scratched -out. Wednesday morning came. - -Divinity was the only examination left except Repetition on Thursday -morning: Wednesday afternoon was a half-holiday. - -He gave out the Old Testament questions: - -“1. Say what you know about the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; -its cause and effects. - -“2. Write briefly a life of Aaron...” - -He found that now suddenly his brain was perfectly clear. To-day was -Wednesday—before Friday he would kill Traill. The determination came to -him perfectly plainly in the midst of these questions: - -“6. Give context of: 'Kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found -favor in thy sight.' “'Let us make a captain and let us return into -Egypt.' - -“'Is the Lord's hand waxed short?'.rdquo; - -He would kill Traill. He did not mind at all what happened to him -afterwards. What did it matter? Perhaps he would kill himself. He was -a complete failure; he had never been any use at all, and had only been -there for people to laugh at and mock him. - -If it had not been for Traill he might have been of use—he might have -married Miss Desart. Traill had been against him in every way, and now -the only thing that was left for him to do was to kill Traill. He hated -Traill—of course he hated Traill; but it was not really because of that -that he was going to kill Traill—it was only because he wanted to show -all these people that he could do something: he was not useless, after -all. They might laugh at him and call him Pompous, but, after all, the -laugh would be on his side at the end.... Traill would not be able to -kiss Miss Desart very much longer—another day, and he would never be -able to kiss her again.... That was a pleasant thought. - -Now that he had decided this question he felt a great deal happier and -easier in his mind. There was no longer any self-pity. - -He had given God His opportunity—he had prayed to God and besought Him; -he had tried very hard at the beginning of this term to go right and to -be agreeable to people and to keep the other Mr. Perrin in the distance, -but everything had been very hard, and that was God's fault for making -it so hard. - -He thought that he would surprise God by killing Traill. God would not -be expecting that. - -Still more would he surprise the place—Moffatt's—that place that had -treated him so cruelly all these years. It would be a grand, big thing -to kill his enemy! - -On that Wednesday, half an hour before the midday dinner, he walked -slowly, with his hands behind his bent back, through the long -dining-hall. The long, black tables were laid for dinner, and beside -every round, shining plate there lay two knives. These knives made a -long, glittering line right down the table, and the sun caught their -gleaming steel and flashed from knife to knife. The sight of them -fascinated Mr. Perrin—it was with a knife that he would kill Traill—he -would cut Traill's throat. He picked them up, one after the other, and -felt their edges—they were all wonderfully sharp. There were a great -many of them—you could cut a great many throats with all those knives, -but he did not want to cut anyone else's throat except Traill's—Traill -was his enemy. - -At dinner that day he was pleasant and cheerful. He joked with the boys -on either side of him and asked where they were going for the holidays. - -“Ah! Cromer—um—yes, very pleasant. Our little friend will amuse himself -hugely at Cromer, no doubt. Sure to over-eat on Christmas Day. Um, -yes—and you, Larkin, where do you go?... Ah! Whitby—long way. Yes, able -to read your holiday task in the train.” - -He sent the servant out to sharpen the carving-knife, and when it was -brought back he attacked the mutton in the most furious way, scattering -the gravy over the cloth. - -After dinner he stood above the playing-fields, watching the clouds sail -across the sky. It was a very gray-colored day, but there was the light -of the sun behind it, so that everything shone without color but with a -transparency as though one should be able to see other lights and colors -behind it. - -Perrin thought that he had never seen the clouds assume such curious -shapes—perhaps they were not clouds at all, but rather creatures of the -sky that only his eye could see, just as it was only his eye that could -see the other Mr. Perrin. There were birds with long, bending necks, and -fat, round-faced animals with only one eye, and stiff, angular creatures -with wings and legs like sticks, and then again there were splendid -galleons with sails unfurled, and cathedral towers and trees and -mountain ranges—they were all very strange and beautiful, and perhaps -this was the last time that he would see them. - -Then he saw, passing down the path to the right and walking fast in the -direction of the road, two figures; another glance, and he saw that they -were Miss Desart and Traill—there was no doubt at all that that was -Miss Desart in her gray dress, and that man with his swinging stick was -Traill. - -The sight of them together suddenly roused him to fury; it would be -amusing to kill Traill now, there, before Miss Desart. He did not know -how he would do it, perhaps he would spring on to Traill's back from -behind and strangle him with his hands. - -And so, with the other Mr. Perrin at his ear, he followed them down the -path. - -It was a day of ghosts—even the brown color of the earth of the hill -that so seldom left it was gone to-day. It was not a cold day, and one -felt that the sun was burning with intense heat in some neighboring -place, but gray wisps of mist crept in and out of the black, naked -hedges, and, at the bottom of the hill, banks of mist lay, visiting the -cottages of the village. - -The two figures passed in front of him down the hill and became, like -the rest of the day, gray and misty, and he followed them, stealthily, -with his hands behind his back. Their heads were very close together, -and he could see that they were talking very eagerly. They were -discussing, probably, their plans for the holidays, and it pleased him -to think that he would make all their plans of no avail. It pleased the -other Mr. Perrin also. - -They passed down the village street and then up the steep, narrow path -to the road that led along the top of the cliffs. At the top of the path -the mists had cleared again, and the rocks, hidden at the floor of -the sea by gray vapor, stood as it were in mid-air, their black edges -piercing the sky. When Mr. Perrin climbed to the top of the path, the -other figures had preceded him some way along it and were almost hidden -by boulders. He hastened a little so that he might keep them in sight, -and then he hung back a little lest he should be too close to them. They -were still talking very eagerly and crossed down a stony path that led -to a sheltered cove. At the bottom of this they sat down on the sand, -and Perrin hid behind a rock and watched them. - -The world was terribly still, because, although there was a wind that -made the clouds race along, it seemed to leave the sea alone, and the -water made the very faintest sound as it touched the beach and faded -away into the mist again. - -Mr. Perrin found that his legs were very tired, and so he sat down -behind his stone and peered out at them. They sat very close together on -the sand, and then Traill put out his arm and Miss Desart crept into it -and sat there with her head against his shoulder. And when Perrin saw -that, he knew that he never could do anything to Traill whilst Miss -Desart was there. A dreadful feeling of home-sickness came over him, and -his eyes filled with tears. It was so unfair, so unfair. If only there -had been someone there to whom he could have done that: if only there -had ever been anyone in his life!... but he dashed the tears from his -eyes. He had not come there to cry—he had come there for vengeance, and -then, at that thought, he wondered whether after all he were not so poor -a creature that he would never be able to kill anyone. Supposing he -were to miss even this chance of achievement! There, behind his rock, -he tried to gather together all his reasons for hating Traill; but he -couldn't think properly, and the pebbles on which he was sitting were -pressing into his trousers, and his neck was hurting because he craned -it so. - -At any rate he was very uncomfortable, and as he could certainly do -nothing whilst Miss Desart was there, he had better go away. And so he -got up very slowly and painfully from behind his rock and went timidly -up the path again. IV. - -And that night, after going the round of the dormitories for the -last time, he went into his room and closed his door with the clear -determination of settling things up. - -His head had not been so clear for weeks. He saw at once that he had -corrected no papers and that something must be done about that. - -He sat down and, with the term's marks beside him, made out imaginary -examination lists. Of course it was all very wrong, but it was for the -last time, and he had, after all, put the boys in the order in which -they would probably; occur. This took him about an hour. - -Then he took all the files of examination papers and tore them up. This -took a long time, and they filled, at last, his waste-paper basket to -overflowing. Then he sat down to write to his mother. - -Dear Old Lady: - -This is the last time that you will see or hear from me. Do not regret -it or anything that I have done, because I am no good, and am just a -failure. There is £100 in the bank which I have saved, and you will -get things with it. Sell my things: they will bring a little. I love you -very much, old lady, but I am no good.—Your loving son, - -Vincent Perrin. - -He fastened up the letter and addressed it to— - -Mrs. Perrin, - -Holly Cottage, - -Bubblewick, - -Bucks. - -Just as he finished it he heard eleven o'clock strike. He waited until -the clocks had ended, then he opened his door and looked down the -passage. It was quite silent. He walked quietly down the stairs, down -the lower passage, and so to the dining-room. - -Here the long tables were laid for breakfast. He paused at one of the -tables and chose one of the knives; they did not seem very sharp, and -he tried others on the hack of his hand. At last he had selected one and -put it under his coat. He returned to his room and closed his door. When -he got there he stood in the middle of his room, and looked stupidly -at the knife. What had he got it for? There was Traill next door... of -course. - -But he could not do anything now. He had fancied that when one had got -the knife, then the next thing was to go straight and do something with -it. But he found that he could not, that he could not move from where he -was, and that his hand was shaking as though with an ague. - -The knife dropped on to the floor with a sharp sound, and he sank into a -chair. What a wretched, miserable creature he was, after all! There -was nothing fine about him—there was nothing fine about anyone at -Moffatt's—they were all a miserable lot... and to-morrow there would be -speeches and prizes and cheering! What a funny thing life was! - -But it was no use thinking about life with that knife on the floor. It -was quite clear that he wasn't going to do anything to-night—he might -just as well go to bed. His headache was dreadfully bad, and he was -shivering all over. He put the knife into a drawer and blew out his -lamp. - -He hated the dark—he had always hated it—and so he hurried into his -bedroom and tried to light his candle, but his hand was shaking so that -it was a long time before he could strike a match, and he cursed the -matches feebly and felt inclined to cry. - -He was a long time undressing and sat on the edge of the bed in his -shirt and looked at his long, thin legs and hated them; then he saw the -black marks on the yellow paper, and he scratched another off.... At -last he blew out the candle and got into bed. - -He seemed to fall asleep all at once and was aware that he was -asleep—but after a time he felt that although he was asleep, he was -conscious of someone watching him. He opened his eyes and saw that the -other Mr. Perrin was sitting by his bed, watching him, and although the -room was quite dark, the gray figure was in some way luminous, so that -he could see that he wore a long, gray cloak and that his features were -exactly the same as his own. He was forced against his will to get out -of bed and to follow the other Mr. Perrin out of the house, down the -long, white road, down to the sea. Here they were in that little cove -where Traill and Miss Desart had been that afternoon. They sat with -their backs against the rocks, and in all the air there was a strange, -uncertain light, and the sea came over the shore in sullen, dreamy -movements, as a tired woman's fingers move when she is sewing. - -Then Mr. Perrin saw that down the beach there passed a long procession -of gray, bending figures with heavy burdens on their backs. Their faces -were white and hopeless, and their hands, with long, white fingers, hung -at their sides. - -He was conscious of some great feeling of injustice—that this must not -be allowed—and an over-mastering impulse to call out that it was all -wrong and to run forward and relieve them of their burdens—but he could -not move nor utter any sound. Then suddenly he recognized faces that he -knew, and he saw White and Birkland and Combers and Dormer and then—his -own. - -He gave a great cry and broke from his companion and rushed swiftly back -up the white road, in through the black gates, up the stairs, and into -his room. - -He stood in the middle of his room and felt suddenly cold. To his -surprise he saw that the moon was shining through the window, although -there had been no moon on the beach. The room was so bright that he -could distinguish every object perfectly—and then he realized slowly -that things were different. Those silver-backed hair-brushes were not -his, his bed was not there—that photograph.... - -Someone was in the bed. - -For an instant his heart stopped beating. There was a draught between -the window and the door... someone else was in the bed; he had been -walking in his sleep; he was in Traill's room. - -He could see Traill quite clearly now, lying with one hand on the -counterpane, his head on an arm. He was fast asleep, and his month was -smiling. - -Mr. Perrin shook from head to foot. Here was his opportunity—here was -his enemy fast asleep... now. He stepped nearer to the bed—he bent over -the face. Traill's pyjama-jacket was open at the neck... it would be -very easy. - -Then suddenly, with a little cry and his face in his hands, he crept -from the room. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII—MR. PERRIN LISTENS WHILE THEY ALL MAKE SPEECHES I. - -THE next day, its brilliant sun and hard, shining cold, brought in its -train great things. - -The last day of the Christmas term was in some ways greater than the -last day of the summer term, because it was a more private family -affair. - -One addressed one's ancestors, one arrayed one's traditions, one -fashioned one's history, with flags and flowers and orations, but it was -in the midst of the family that it was done. - -Parents—mothers and fathers and cousins—were indeed there, but they, -too, must recognize that it was not for their immediate individual -Johnny or Charles that these things were done, but rather for the great -worship and recognition of Sir Marmaduke Boniface. - -Sir Marmaduke Boniface has hitherto received no mention in this slender -history, but his importance in any chronicle of Moffatt's cannot be -over-estimated. He was a Cornish; magnate, living and dying some hundred -years ago, growing rich in the pursuit of jam, building large stone -mansions out of that same delicacy, fat, pompous, and fading at last -into a heavy stone monument in the corner of the church at the bottom -of the Brown Hill—a great man in his day and in his place, amongst other -things the founder of Moffatt's. - -It was not very long ago; outside the confines of Cornwall he had -been perhaps but vaguely recognized—perchance, perchance, the surest -foundation of an extravagant record.... No matter, here we have our -tradition, and let us make the best possible use of it. - -But this Marmadukery—a hideous word, but it serves—spread far beyond -that stout originator. It was the spirit of the public school, the -esprit de corps signified by the School song (it began “Procul in -Cornubia,” and was violently shouted at stated intervals during the -year), the splendid appeal “to our fathers who have played in these -fields before us”—this was the cry that these banners and orations -signified. Moffatt's was not a very old school, true—but shout enough -about some founder or other and the smallest boy will have tears in his -eyes and a proud swelling at his breast. Sir Marmaduke becomes medieval, -mystic, “the great, good man” of history, and Moffatt's is “one of our -good old schools. There's nothing like our public school system, you -know—has its faults, of course; but tradition—that 's the Thing.” - -The stout figure of Sir Marmaduke hangs heavy over the day. Everyone -feels it—everyone feels a great many other things as well, but Sir -Marmaduke is the Thing. - -He was the Thing in some vague, blind way even to Mrs. Comber, so that -he kept coming into the confused but happy conversation to which she -treated anxious parents on the morning of this great day. Mothers -arrived in great numbers on these occasions, and these three great days -of the three terms were to Mrs. Comber the happiest and most confused -events in the year. They marked an approaching freedom, they marked the -immediate return of her own children, and they marked an amazing number -of things that ought to be done at once, with the confusing feeling -about Sir Marmaduke also in the air. - -But to-day she was happy; this horrible, terrible term was almost over. -She had been so sure that something dreadful was going to happen, and -nothing dreadful had happened, after all. They were safe—or almost -safe—and her dear Isabel and Isabel's young man would be out of the -place before they knew where they were. Then her own Freddie had last -night, suddenly, before going to bed, taken her in his arms and kissed -her as he had never kissed her before. Oh! things were going to be all -right... they were escaping for a time at any rate. In the thought of -the holidays, of a month's freedom, everything that had happened during -the term was swiftly becoming faint and vague and distant. - -Now she was smiling in her sitting-room with four mothers about her, one -very fat and one very thin, one in blue and one in gray, and they all -sat very stiff in their chairs and listened to what she had to say. - -She had a great deal to say, because she was feeling so happy, and -happiness always provoked volubility, but she made the mistake of -talking to all four of them at once, and they, in vain, like anglers at -a pool, flung, desperately, hurried little sentences at her, but secured -no attention. Beyond and above it all was the shadow of Sir Marmaduke. - -But her happiness, when she drove them at length from her, caught at -the advancing figure of Isabel, with a cry and a clasp of the hand: “My -dear!—no, we 've only got a minute, because lunch is early—one o'clock, -and cold—you don't mind, do you, dear; but there's to be such a dinner -to-night, and I've just had four mothers, and wise is n't the word for -what I've been, although I confused all their children as I always do, -bless their hearts. But, oh! the term's over, and I could go on my knees -and thank Heaven that it is, because I 've never hated anything so much, -and if it had lasted another week I should have struck off Mrs. Dormer's -head for the way she's treating you, for dead sure certain—” - -“Archie's not coming back, you know,” Isabel interrupted. - -“Oh, my dear, I knew. He went and saw Moy-Thompson last week, and of -course it's the wisest thing, and I only wish my Freddie was as young -and we'd be off from here tomorrow.” She stopped and sighed a little and -looked through the window at the hard, shining ground, the stiff, bare -trees, the sharp outline of the buildings. “But it's no use wishing,” -she went on cheerfully enough, “and we won't any of us think of next -term at all but only of the blessed month of freedom that's in front -of us.” Her voice softened; she put her hand on Isabel's arm. “All the -same, my dear, I'm glad you and Archie are getting away from it all. It -was touching him, you know.” - -“Yes, I saw it,” the girl answered. “And I don't want him to -schoolmaster again if he can help it. I think with father's help he 'll -be able to get a Government office of some sort.” She hesitated, then -said, smiling a little, “Are you and Mr. Comber—” She stopped. - -“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Comber bruskily, “we are—and there 's no doubt -that things are better than they have been. I suppose marriage is always -like that: there 's the thrilling time at first, and then you find it -is n't there any longer and you've got to make up your mind to getting -along. Things rub you up, you know, and I'm sure I 've been as tiresome -as anything, and then there's a good big row and the air's cleared—and -shall I wear that big yellow hat or the black one this afternoon?” - -“The black one fits the day better,” said Isabel absent-mindedly. She -was wondering whether the time would ever come when she and Archie would -feel ordinary about each other. - -“But isn't it funny,” she went on, “that here we are at the end of the -term, and already, with the holiday beginning, all our quarrels and -fights about things like that silly umbrella are seeming impossible? It -was all too absurd, and yet I was as angry as anyone.” - -“It all comes,” said Mrs. Comber, “of our living too close. Now that -we're going to spread out over the holidays, we 're as friendly as -anything, although really, my dear, I hate Mrs. Dormer as much as -ever”—which was difficult to believe when that lady arrived at a -quarter-past two to pick up Mrs. Comber and Isabel and to go with them -to the prize-giving. - -Her dress was obviously very stiff and difficult, with a high, black -neck to it, with little ridges of whalebone all around it, and out of -this she spoke and smiled. The two ladies were very pleasant to one -another as they walked down the path to the school hall. - -“And where are you going for your Christmas vacation, Mrs. Comber?” - -“I really don't know. It depends so much on the boys and the housemaid. -I mean the housemaid's given notice, you know, because I had to speak -to her about breathing when handing round the vegetables; and she gave -notice on the spot, as they all do when I speak to them, and unless I -can get another, I really don't think I shall ever be able to get away.” - -“Really, what servants are coming to!” Mrs. Dormer was struggling -with her collar like a dog. “Poor Mrs. Comber, I am so sorry—of course -management's the thing, but we haven't all the gift and can't expect to -have it.” - -“And Mrs. Dormer, I do hope that you are going to be here over -Christmas, so that we can keep each other company. It would be so nice -if you and Mr. Dormer would come to us on Boxing evening, even if I have -n't got a housemaid, and I heard of a very likely one from Mrs. Rose -yesterday—quite a nice girl she sounded—who's been under-parlormaid at -Colonel Forster's now for the last five years, and never a fault to find -with her except a tendency to catching cold, which made her sniff at -times.” - -“Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. Comber; but my husband and I are hoping to -spend a few days in London about that time. Otherwise we should have -loved—” - -For so much charity is the presence of Sir Marmaduke Boniface -responsible. II. - -Sir Marmaduke, and all that his coming signified, was also responsible -for clearing the air in other directions. Young Traill found, on this -morning, that people were very much pleasanter to him than they had -hitherto been. The coming holidays were obviously to be a truce, and, as -he was not returning next term, it was an end of things so far as he was -concerned. He could not feel proud of it all. The events of the term -had shown him that he was not nearly so fine a fellow as he had thought -himself. His pride, his temper, his irritation—all these things were -lions with which he had never fought before: now they must always, for -the future, be consciously kept in check. - -He was tired, exhausted, worn-out. He was very glad that he was going -away—now he would be able to have Isabel to himself, and they might, -together, forget this horrible nightmare of a term. He looked on the -buildings of Moffatt's as the iron prison of some hideous dream. He -could not sleep for the thought of it. Last night he had had some bad -dream... he could not remember now what it had been, but he had wakened -suddenly in a great panic, to imagine that someone was closing his door. -Of course it had only been the wind, but he hoped that he would sleep -properly to-night. - -At any rate he was glad that people were going to be pleasant to him on -this last day of the term. The stout Miss Madder, Dormer, Clinton—they -all seemed to be sorry that he was going, in spite of all the trouble -that he had made. He did not think of Perrin.... - -Then he suddenly remembered Birkland. He would go and say good-by to -him. - -He climbed the steep stairs and found the little man busily packing. The -floor was covered with packing cases, books lay about in piles, and the -air was full of dust. - -“Hullo!” said Traill, coughing in the doorway, “what's all this?” - -“Hullo!” said Birkland, looking up. “I'm glad you 've come. I was coming -round to see you, if you hadn't. I'm off for good.” - -“Off for good!” Traill stared in astonishment. - -“Well, for good or bad. The things that have happened this term have -finally screwed me up to a last attempt. One more struggle before I -die—nothing can be worse than this—I gave notice last week.” - -“What are you going to do?” asked Traill. - -“I don't know—it's mad enough, I expect. But I've saved a tiny hit of -money that will keep me for a time. I shall have a shot at anything. -Nothing can he as bad as this—nothing!” - -He stood up, looking grim and scant enough in his shirt-sleeves with -dust on his cheeks and his hair on end. - -“Well, I'm damned!” said Traill. “Well, after all, I'm on the same game. -I don't know what I'm going to do either. We 're both in the same box.” - -“Oh!” said Birkland, “you've got youth and a beautiful lady to help you. -I'm alone, and most of the spirit's knocked out of me after twenty years -of this; but I'm going to have a shot—so wish me luck!” - -“Why, of course I do,” said Traill, coming up to him. “We 'll do it -together—we 'll see heaps of each other.” - -“Ah! heaps!” said Birkland, shaking his head. “No, I'm too dry and dusty -a stick by this time for young fellows like you. No, I'm better alone. -But I 'll come and see you one day.” - -“You were quite right,” said Traill suddenly, “in what you said about -the place the evening at the beginning of the term when I came in to see -you. You were quite right.” - -“Poor boy,” said Birkland, looking at him affectionately, “you had a -hard dose of it. Perhaps it was all for the best, really. It drove -you out. If I'd been treated to that kind of row at the beginning, -I mightn't have been here twenty years. And, after all, you met Miss -Desart here.” - -“Yes,” said Traill, “that makes it worth it fifty times over.” - -“And now,” went on Birkland grimly, “this afternoon you shall see the -closing scene of our pageant. You shall see our glory, our tradition. -You will hear the head of our body state his satisfaction with the -term's work, proclaim his delight at the friendly spirit that pervades -the school, allude, through the great Sir Marmaduke Boniface, maker of -strawberry jam, to our ancient and honorable tradition in which we all, -from the eldest to the youngest, have our humble share.” He spread his -arms. “Oh! the mockery of it! To get out of it!—to get out of it! And -now, at last, after twenty years, I'm going. If it hadn't been for you, -Traill, I believe I'd be here still. Well, perhaps it's to breaking -stones on a road that I'm going... at any rate, it won't be this.” - -And so here, too, Sir Marmaduke Boniface is remembered and has his -influence. III. - -But with all these fine spirits, with all this stir and friendly -feeling, with all this preparation for a great event, Mr. Perrin had -little to do. This morning had, in no way, been for him a reconciling -or a triumph at approaching freedom. After some three or four hours' -troubled and confused sleep he awoke to the humiliating, maddening -consciousness that he had again, now for the second time, missed his -chance. - -This one thing that he had thought he could do he had missed once more; -not even at this last, blind vengeance was he any good. - -To-morrow it would be too late; Traill, his enemy, would be gone, -they would all be gone, and he would return, next term, the same -insignificant creature at whom they had all laughed for so long; and -then it would be worse than ever, because Traill would have escaped him, -and in the distant ages it would be told how once there had been a young -man, straight from the University, who had flung him to the ground -and trampled on him, and beaten him, in all probability, with his own -umbrella.... - -Ah, no! it was not to be borne—the thing must be done; there must be no -missing of an opportunity this third time. - -He heard the Repetition that morning with a vacant mind. -Somerset-Walpole knew nothing about it, but for once in his life he -suffered no punishment. Perrin thought afterwards that Garden Minimus -had looked at him as though he would like to speak to him, but he could -not think of Garden Minimus now—there were other more important things -to think about. - -Of course it must be done that night—there was only one night left. -Afterwards he thought that he would go down to the sea and drown -himself. He had heard that drowning was rather pleasant. - -His mind was busy, all that morning, with the things that everyone would -say afterwards. He wished very much that he could stay behind in some -way that he might hear what they said. At any rate, they would be able -to laugh at him no longer; he would appear to all of them as something -terrible, portentous, awful... that, at any rate, was a satisfaction. -Miss Desart, of course, would be sorry. That was a pity, because he did -not wish to hurt Miss Desart; but, in the end, it would be all for the -best, because she was much too good for a man like Traill and would only -be unhappy if she married him. - -What a scene there would be when they found Traill in bed with his -throat cut!—no, they would not laugh at him again! - -He spoke to nobody that morning; but, when Repetition was over, he went -back to his room and sat there, quite still, in his chair, looking in -front of him, with the door closed. - -And then Traill came up and spoke to him just as he was on his way up to -the school for the speeches. - -He smiled and said, “Oh! I say, Perrin, do let us make it all up—now -that term is over, and I 'm not coming back. I do hate to think that we -should not part friends—it's all been my stupid fault, and I am so very -sorry.” - -But Perrin did not stop, nor answer. He walked straight up the path -with his eyes looking neither to the left nor the right. After all, you -couldn't shake hands with a man whose throat you were going to cut in -the evening. He heard Traill's exasperated “Oh! very well,” and then he -passed into Big School. - -He stepped into the hall as unobtrusively as possible. The boys were -always there first, and it was their way to cheer the masters as they -came in. If you were very popular, they cheered you loudly; if you were -unpopular, they cheered you not at all. Perrin had no illusions about -his popularity, and the silence on his entrance did not therefore -surprise him, but matters were not improved by the roar of cheering that -greeted Traill. Ah, well! they would never cheer him again. - -The boys were placed in rows down the room according to their forms, and -the masters sat where they pleased. Perrin stationed himself in a corner -by the wall at the back; he fastened his eyes on the platform and kept -them there until the end of the ceremonies—no one noticed him—no one -spoke to him—not for him were their songs and festivals. - -The raised platform at the end of the hall was surrounded with flowers, -and ranged against the wall, seated on hard, uncertain chairs were the -Governing Body, or as many of the Governing Body as had spared time to -come. - -These were for the most part large, serious, elderly gentlemen, with -stout bodies, and shining, beady eyes; their immovability implied that -they considered that the business would be sooner over were they passive -and as nonexistent as possible—they all wore a considerable amount of -watch-chain. - -In front of them was a long, black table, and on this were ranged -the prizes—a number of impossibly shiny volumes that might have been -biscuit-tins, for all the reading that they seemed to contain. Beside -them in a wooden armchair was seated a little man like a sparrow, -in patent leather boots and a high, white collar, whose smile was -intermittent, but regular. - -This was Sir Arthur Spalding, who had been asked to give away the -prizes, because ten other gentlemen had been invited and refused. On the -other side of the table the Rev. Moy-Thompson tried to express geniality -and authority by the curves of his fingers and the bend of his head; -he stroked his beard at intervals. In the front rows the ladies were -seated: Mrs. Comber, large and smiling, in purple; Mrs. Moy-Thompson, -endeavoring to escape her husband's eye, but drawn thither continually -as though by a magnet; the Misses Madder, Mrs. Dormer, Isabel, and many -parents. - -The proceedings opened with a speech from the Rev. Moy-Thompson. He -alluded, of course, in the first place to Sir Marmaduke Boniface, “our -founder, hero, and example”; then by delicate stages to Sir Arthur -Spalding, whose patent leather boots simply shone with delight at the -pleasant things that were said. This preface over, he dilated on the -successes of the term. K. Somers had been made a Commissioner of -Police in Orang-Mazu-Za (cheers); W. Binnors had been fifteenth in -an examination that had something to do with Tropical Diseases -(more cheers); M. Watson had received the College Essay Prize at St. -Catherine's College, Cambridge; and C. Duffield had obtained a second -class in the first part of the Previous Examination at the same -university (frantic cheering, because Duffield had been last year's -captain of the Rugby football.) All this, Mr. Moy-Thompson said, was -exceedingly encouraging, and they could not help reflecting that Sir -Marmaduke Boniface, were he conscious of these successes, would be -extremely pleased (cheers). Passing on to the present term, he was -delighted to be able to say that never, in all his long period as -headmaster, could he remember a more equable and energetic term -(cheers). As a term it had been marked perhaps by no events of -special magnitude, but rather by the cordial friendliness of all those -concerned. Masters and boys, they had all worked together with a -will. It was a familiar saying that “a nation was blessed that had no -history”—well, that applied to such a term as the one just concluded -(cheers). If he might allude once more to their excellent Founder, he -was quite sure that Sir Marmaduke Boniface was precisely the kind of man -to rejoice in this spirit of friendship (cheers). He must here allude -for a moment to his staff. Surely a headmaster had never been surrounded -with so pleasant a body of men—men who understood exactly the kind of -esprit de corps necessary if a school's work were to be properly carried -on; men who put aside all private feelings for the one great purpose of -making Moffatt's a great school—that was, he truly believed, the one aim -and object of every man and boy in Moffatt's—they might be sure that -was the one and only aim and object that he ever kept before him. He -had nothing more to do but introduce Sir Arthur Spalding, who would give -away the prizes. - -Mr. Moy-Thompson sat down, hot and inspired, amidst a burst of frantic -cheering and clapping, but was suddenly chilled by the consciousness -of Mr. Perrin's eyes glaring at him in the strangest manner across the -room. He shifted his chair a little to the left, so that a boy's head -intervened. The Governing Body at the conclusion of his speech moved -their heads to the right, then to the left, smiled once, and resumed -their immovability. - -Sir Arthur Spalding was nervous, but found courage to say that he -believed in our public schools—that was the thing that made men of us—he -should never forget what he himself owed to Harrow. He should like -to say one thing to the boys—that they were not to think that winning -prizes was everything. We couldn't all win prizes; let those who failed -to obtain them remember that “slow and steady wins the race.” It wasn't -always the boys who won prizes who got on best afterwards. No—um—ah—he -never used to win prizes at school himself. It wasn't always the -boys—here he pulled himself up and remembered that he had said it -before. There was something else that he'd wanted to say, but he'd quite -forgotten what it was. Here he was conscious of Mr. Perrin's eyes and -thought that he'd never seen anything so discouraging. He did not seem -to be able to escape them. What a dangerous-looking man! - -So he hurriedly concluded. Just one word he'd like to leave them from -our great poet Tennyson—! He looked for the little piece of paper on -which he had written the verse. He could not find it; he searched -his pockets—no—where had he put it? Lady Spalding, in the third row, -suffered horrible agonies. He recovered himself and was vague. He would -advise them all to read Tennyson, a fine poet, a very fine poet—yes—and -now he would give away the prizes. IV. - -Meanwhile, Mr. Perrin up to the commencement of Mr. Moy-Thompson's -speech, had been merely conscious that a period of waiting had, so to -speak, “to be put in.” He was not aware, in the very least, that his -eyes were causing both Sir Arthur Spalding and Mr. Moy-Thompson acute -discomfort; he was not aware that boys were looking at him, watching him -with eager curiosity and nudging one another, speculatively. He was not -aware that Isabel's eyes were upon him, eyes of pity “because he looked -so queer, as though he had a headache.” - -He stood there, beside the small round-eyed boys of the First and Second -Forms, staring in front of him, without moving. The first words of -Moy-Thompson's speech fell upon his ears unconsciously. It did not -matter what they said, it did not matter what they thought, the case at -issue was between himself and Traill and he faced that with an irritated -impatience at these tiresome hours that kept him from his eager -realization. - -He began slowly to understand the things that Moy-Thompson was saying. -And suddenly it was as though he had, morally and mentally, taken -himself, forcibly, out of one room into another—out of a room in which -there was only Traill's figure, gray, shadowy, by the door, otherwise -dark, obscured by a clinging mist... a dangerous place... into a place -that had for its furniture tangible things, things like this speech that -Moy-Thompson was making, things that had to do with no especial figure, -but rather with a vast, intolerable condition, with a system. - -What was he saying?... How dare he? Perrin moved impatiently in his -place. He looked at the row of faces raised to the platform, the silly, -stupid faces. That Mrs. Thompson in her thin black dress with her bony -neck; that silly, cheerful Mrs. Comber in her bulging, flaming garments; -that Lady Spalding, so stiff and sharp, as though she were of any -importance to anyone—all of them listening to these things that -Moy-Thompson was saying, and believing them, believing these... Lies! - -Traill was almost forgotten as Perrin stepped a little forward from the -wall in order that he might hear better. The sight of Moy-Thompson's -face up there on the platform smiling, so complacent, patriarchal with -that white beard wagging at the end of it, brought the blood to his -head. He clenched his thin hands. What were the other men doing that -they could stand there and listen to these lies? Why did they not step -forward and tell the truth to all those stupid women and those fat -governors, to the little man with the shining boots on the platform? -They knew that these thing were lies. Had not this term been hell, had -it not been slow torture for them all, had not that man with the white -beard full knowledge of these lies that he was telling? What was his -private quarrel with Traill as compared with this monstrous injustice? -He was pale now, with a long red mark against the white of his cheek. He -had stepped right away from the wall and the small boys of the First and -Second Forms were watching him. - -It came upon him suddenly, like a flash from the lightning of heaven, -that it was for him to escape these things. He had suffered more than -the others, he knew better than they the things that were done in this -place! Something was going round in his head like a red-hot wire, but he -remembered, even at that confused moment, that scene a few days before -in the common room, when they had all been so nearly stirred to revolt -by Birkland. What if he were to break the bonds?... What rot! what rot! -what rot! He could have shouted it to the roof—“Lies! Lies! Lies!” - -There was a little stir and rustle as Moy-Thompson finished his -speech—ladies' dresses moved against the chairs, boots slipped along the -floor—and then a burst of cheering and clapping. Perrin rubbed his hands -against one another—they were hot and dry and something rather like a -bobbin on a latch went up and down in his throat—his eyes were burning. -He moved a little further from the wall and a little nearer to the -central gangway between the blocks of boys. - -And now Sir Arthur Spalding stood nervously behind the glittering copies -of “Tennyson's Poems,” Sir Robert Ball's “Wonders of the Heavens,” “The -Works of Spencer,” and other volumes of our admirable classics. They -began with the bottom of the school, and a small fat boy with a crimson -face, boots that creaked like a badly-oiled door and were shaped like -Chinese boats, staggered up to the platform. A lady, prominent for -her size and large picture hat moved eagerly in her chair, clapped -vehemently with her white gloves and so proclaimed herself a mother. - -Sir Arthur Spalding had every intention of making a pleasant speech to -each prizewinner—“something that they could remember afterwards, you -know”—and began to say something to the small and red-faced boy, but was -startled by the sound of eager, anticipatory breathing close to his ear. -Turning round, he discovered that three more small boys were waiting -anxiously for their turn and that others were coming up the room. He -therefore hurried along with “Here you are, my boy. Remember that prizes -aren't everything in life—hope you 'll read it—delightful book.” - -Mr. Perrin watched these boys passing up and down with eager eyes. He -must wait—now was not the time, but soon there would be another speech -to thank the absurd man with the boots for giving the prizes away. To -his excited fancy it seemed to him now that the rest of the staff were -looking at him as though they knew what he was going to do. They must -have felt as indignant as he did at those lies that this man had been -telling them. But those governors should know the truth for once at any -rate and in a way that they should not forget... strangely, in the back -of his mind he wished that his mother could be present.... - -The senior boys were going up for their prizes now and were cheered -according to their popularity. The Cricket captain, an enormous fellow, -had secured something for Mathematics, and the room burst into a tempest -of applause as he moved heavily up to the platform. He seemed very -pleased with it all, Mr. Perrin thought, and received his prize with a -flushed face and a friendly smile, and yet he had always been one of the -leading rebels in the school. How easily these people were subdued, with -a book and a few pleasant words—fool! Mr. Perrin's breath came quicker -as he watched the boy stumble back to his seat. - -Then, the prizes delivered, Mr. Moy-Thompson rose to say a few words. -It had been very gratifying, he said, to all of them to have so -distinguished a visitor as Sir Arthur Spalding amongst them that -afternoon. It must have been difficult for Sir Arthur to have found time -amongst so many engagements to come and spend an afternoon with them. -(Cheers—Sir Arthur conveys a sense of hurry and confusion and looks at -his shirt cuffs as though his engagements were written down there.) They -on their part were greatly the gainers because there was no one in the -room, however young, however inexperienced, who would not remember, as -long as he lived, those words of encouragement and cheer. Indeed, it -was not only for the winners of prizes that life was intended (here -Mr. Moy-Thompson repeated many of Sir Arthur Spalding's remarks and -the governors moved restlessly in their chairs), but (and here -Mr. Moy-Thompson started on a new note) it might not be, perhaps, -presumptuous of him to hope that it was not only for them that afternoon -might have pleasant memories. For Sir Arthur Spalding also, he might -hope, there would be times in the future when he would look back and -remember that he had seen, for an instant at least, one of our British -public schools in one of its happiest and most prosperous phases. He -might flatter himself— - -“It 's all lies!” - -The voice cut into the quiet and solemnity of the occasion like a knife. -To the small hoys of the First and Second Forms, tired already of the -over-long ceremony, their eyes wandering restlessly about the room, -there may perhaps have been no surprise. They had watched that strange -master of theirs—“that old ass Pompous”—seen his edging from the wall -into the center of the room, seen his eyes burning, his hands clenching -and unclenching, his lips moving. To them that sudden cry, that sudden -lifting of a fist as though he would strike the patriarch to his feet, -could have come with no uncalculated emotion. But to the rest, to the -governors heavily somnolent, to Sir Arthur Spalding plaintively desiring -his tea, to Mrs. Moy-Thompson, to Mrs. Comber, the matrons, the staff, -the rest of the school, it came driving through the place like a wind, -“What? Who?...” They rose in their places, they uttered little cries, -they stood on the forms, but no one stopped that voice—they were held, -paralyzed. - -And there were very few there who, in after days, forgot that strange -figure, standing in the back of the room, the light of the high window -upon him, his thin figure strung to its tensest, his hand raised, his -gaunt cheeks white, his eyes on fire.... - -“It's lies, all lies!” The words came tumbling out one upon another. “I -don't care—I must speak. Ladies and gentlemen,”—he caught his throat for -a moment with his hand—“I know that this is no occasion for saying those -things, but no one else has the courage—the courage. It is not true what -he has been saying”—he pointed a vehement, trembling finger at the white -patriarch. “We are unhappy here, all of us. We are downtrodden by -that man—we are not paid enough—we are not considered at all—never -considered—everything is wrong—we all hate each other—we hate him—he -hates us—we are unhappy—it is all hell.” - -He felt that his voice was quivering. He knew that he was shaking from -head to foot. He cried once more querulously, “It is all hell here... -hell!” - -And then, suddenly, with head hanging and his hands dropping hopelessly -to his side, he turned and, amidst an intense silence, left the room by -the wide doors behind him. - -There rose, like the murmur of the sea, from the body of the school: - -“It 's Perrin.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIV—MR. PERRIN REACHES THE HEART OF HIS KINGDOM I. - -HE was entirely unconscious of the world about him as he hurried across -the green quadrangles to his rooms. He saw no sky, nor flying clouds, -nor grass, nor gray buildings. He thought not at all of any effect that -his words may have on the people that had heard them; he had no interest -in what had happened after he had left the building. The one fact -was there before him, that he, Perrin, the despised, the mocked, the -rejected, had flung into the midst of them all his bomb. They might -hate him now; the governors and the rest might expel him furiously; they -might deny indignantly his accusations, but they could not, any longer, -ignore him. His little room was strangely cool and gray and quiet. -Everything in it watched him with as sedate and respectable an air as -though nothing tremendous had happened, the hooks, the old chairs, -the little specks of dust floating in the sunlight, and then suddenly -something gleaming from beneath the pile of examination papers on the -table. He turned the papers over, and there, shining against the old, -worn-out tablecloth, was the knife. He stared at it and then very slowly -and thoughtfully put it away in a drawer. He did not want it now. He was -surprised, amazed, at the indifference with which he looked at it. That -morning it had meant so much, now—— - -It was not Traill that he was going to kill; it was something larger, -greater, more sweeping—a system, and at the head of the system, a -tyrant. - -He walked up and down his room with his hands tightly clenched behind -his back. As the minutes passed he grew cooler and more collected. What -would they do? They could not pass over so public a defiance; there must -be an enquiry, there would have to be witnesses. The curious illusions -that had been with him during these last weeks—the illusions about the -other Mr. Perrin, for instance, and that strange fancy about Traill -being always in the room—had vanished suddenly. Things were as they most -certainly appeared to be; that table, those chairs were most solidly -there, and Mr. Perrin touched them with his hands and smiled at their -solidity. Then also it was odd that those incidents that had seemed only -that morning of such paramount importance were now insignificant. That -quarrel over the umbrella, for instance—really, how absurd! When one -was a rebel, a Prometheus, one of the Titans, why then this ignominious -quarreling was a small affair. He pushed all the question of Traill -aside with almost a contemptuous smile. There were bigger things now in -the world. - -What would they do? That was now the all-important question. What would -the staff do? Perrin sat in his armchair by his smoldering fire and -thought about them all. Birk-land with his superior sarcasm, Comber with -his bullying patronage, West the vulgarian, the puppy Traill; now they -would see that there was someone who could do more talking; now they -would find that they owed their deliverance to someone whom they had -hitherto despised. - -He was elated; he was triumphant. He saw himself in the midst of that -hall, standing before them all, denouncing that iniquity.... - -The afternoon drew to evening. Many voices had sounded below his window, -but the summer evening was now drawing, softly and quietly, about the -world. Voices came like notes of music at long intervals across the -darkening lawns. It was nearly seven o'clock and presently it would be -time for chapel. The staff always gathered in the Senior common room -before chapel and they would all be there now. As he paced his room Mr. -Perrin saw them gathered there, talking. - -He felt an eager impatience to know what they were saying. Of course -they would be talking about him, discussing it all. His impatience grew. -He felt that he could not go into chapel until he had heard what they -had to say. He saw them turn as he entered the room, their sudden -silence, and then their eager coming forward. They would tell him their -plans; perhaps they had already prepared a written protest supporting -his own outburst. - -He must go. He hurriedly put on his gown and hastened with shining eyes -and a beating heart to the Upper School. - -He heard, before he opened the door, the buzz of voices, and he entered -the room proudly. They were all gathered about the fire—all of them, -he thought, except Traill. Birkland was in the middle of them and they -seemed to be all talking at once, West's voice above the others. - -“Oh, but of course he 's dotty. It's been coming on for years.” - -And the other voices came together: - -“Well, they ought to have kept him out of the place. It's a disgrace, a -thing like that happening.” - -“Moy-Thompson's face! I wouldn't have missed it for all the holidays in -the world!” - -“No, but really someone ought to have stopped him. He seemed to have got -started before anyone saw him.” - -“Little Spalding thought bombs were being flung about by the look of -him.” - -But Perrin was too greatly elated to pay very much attention to these -speeches. He had heard nothing. He advanced up the long room with a -smile and his head held high, his gown swinging behind him. - -They had heard the door open and now they stood almost in a line, by the -fire, watching him come up the room. They were quite silent and made no -movement. They watched him. - -He was stopped in his advance, suddenly, by their faces. They were -watching him, he thought, curiously. - -His confidence began to leave him. - -“It's nearly chapel time,” he said uneasily. “Hum! ha!” - -There was no answer. - -“Well, Birkland, I 've put your words into deeds, haven't I? Yes, -indeed, hum, ha. I thought it an admirable opportunity.” He stopped -again. - -Birkland murmured something. West and Comber had turned away and were -looking at the papers. - -Perrin felt that he was growing angry. It was so like them to grudge him -any little importance that he might have obtained. They were jealous, of -course, and wished that they had had the courage to step forward. They; -had missed their opportunity and were indignant with him now because he -had seized his—well! - -“Yes,” he said, the color mounting to his cheeks; “I flatter myself that -something will come of it. It will be difficult for them, I think, to -disregard that altogether—hum—yes.” - -There was still silence and then, at last, Birkland said slowly: - -“Going to chapel to-night, Perrin?” - -“Chapel?” sharply. “Yes, of course.” - -Again silence. Then Comber said pompously: - -“Look here, Perrin. Take advice from me and have a good rest. I should -go to bed now if I were you. It 's a good holiday that you 're wanting. -Take my advice. Bed's the place—shouldn't go to chapel if I were -you—hem.” - -“No, shouldn't go to chapel,” repeated Dormer slowly. - -Perrin began to breathe qnickly. “What do you mean?” he cried. “Why -shouldn't I go to chapel? What do you mean about a holiday?” - -“You 're tired,” Birkland said qnickly. “That's what it is. We're all -tired—overdone. We've all been feeling it for weeks. It's a good thing -term's come to an end. I knew something would happen. You 're tired, -Perrin.” - -“Tired!” He turned snarling upon them, his eyes flaming. “Tired! -It's jealousy, that's what it is! You don't like to see me taking the -lead—you hate my coming to the front. You've always hated me, the lot -of you. You 're jealous, that's what it is. You 're cruel”—his voice -suddenly broke—“I was helping you all. That's why I spoke—and now—” - -And then with head hanging, he rushed blindly from the room. II. - -Back to his room again, muttering, “Jealous, that's what they -are—beasts! Jealous! My God, they 're beasts!” - -He lit his lamp with trembling fingers and then on the table he saw a -note. It was from the school-sergeant and ran thus: - -'.ir: - -Mr. Moy-Thompson would be greatly obliged if you could find it possible -to step round and see him for a few minutes directly after chapel.... - -So it had come. He flung off his gown and stared at the dark frame of -the window. The chapel bell was clanging its last notes—the boys from -the Lower School passed under his window in a stream and their noisy -chatter came up to him. It was a wonderful night—the dark-swelling trees -rose in dim clouds against the silver field of stars. The bells stopped -and very faintly he could hear the organ. He was conscious that his head -was aching and he flung the window wide open and drank in the evening -scents. He had passed with all the incoherent swiftness of his feverish -brain from the insults that he had received in the Senior common room -to his approaching interview with the headmaster. Let them rot! He might -have known that that would be the way that they would take it—he was a -fool to have expected anything else. His mind sped on to the future. He -would force them all to see the kind of man that he was. He must brace -himself up for this interview with Moy-Thompson, because this was to be -the decisive crisis of the battle. When he had shown him how determined -he was, when he had made it evident that he would withdraw no jot or -tittle of his accusation, then indeed he would have the place at his -feet. To-morrow, when they had all heard of this interview, they would -sound a very different note. - -He leaned out of his window, drinking in the air. He wished that he were -cooler and that he could think more connectedly. He did not know why it -was, but as soon as he had caught a thought and fixed it there securely, -and had hastened after another, the first one was gone again. - -His thoughts were like fish in a pool. And then suddenly he thought -of Traill—-Traill I Why was it that for weeks Traill had been his one -thought and that now he did not count at all? There was a connection -somewhere between all that personal quarrel and now this sudden public -outburst. It had its link, but as he pressed his hand to his head he -confessed that he was bewildered, that that scene in the common room had -been a check and that he scarcely knew, in this bewilderment, what it -was that he was going to do. - -He sat down in his armchair with the open window behind him, although -it was midwinter. He could hear them singing the End of Term Hymn—“Lord, -dismiss us with Thy Blessing”—and singing it too with vigor that, -exultantly, proclaimed the first happy glimpse of approaching freedom. -He shook his shoulders with irritation and got up and closed the window. -Then he sat down again and considered the matter. - -Moy-Thompson's reception of him offered two possible alternatives. He -could be humble or he could he arrogant—he could plead for mercy or -he might try to bully Perrin into submission. Those were the only two -possibilities. In the first case one would of course be as lenient as -possible. Perrin smiled a very bitter smile as he thought of this. There -would be things of course on which he would insist, demands that he must -make, but he would treat Moy-Thompson gently and if certain concessions -were made he would promise to say no more to the governors. - -On the other hand, if Moy-Thompson attempted to bully.... Perrin gripped -the sides of his chair—well, he would find that he had made a mistake. -The pale face flushed, the tired eyes glowed, the thin body trembled—in -half an hour there would be this battle! - -In half an hour!—in less than half an hour! Already the opening of the -chapel doors flung the organ in a fresh burst of sound upon the evening -breeze. The boys once more passed the windows, shouting and singing. -On ordinary evenings they were disciplined and quiet and passed into -preparation in a proper state of chastened docility; but to-night was -the last night of the term—there was to be a concert—and by this time -to-morrow— - -They shouted as they ran into the lighted buildings and then once more -there was silence—the organ had ceased and the chapel doors were closed. - -Perrin put on his gown and went out. He was stepping at last into the -very heart of the business. He seemed to see that in reality his -enemy had been Moy-Thompson from the beginning. That old man, with the -ingenuity of the devil, had put young Traill in front of him and Perrin -had thought that it was Traill that he was fighting, but now he saw, -with extraordinary clarity, that Moy-Thompson was behind everything. -That spider with that dark study for his web was spinning, always -spinning—more effectively than any of them knew. In his own room with -its dim light, surrounded by such silence, the shadows of that other -room into which he was going frightened him against his will. He was -determined that he would, in no way, surrender or give in, but at the -back of his mind was an undefined suspicion that, in some fashion, -Moy-Thompson would get the better of him. - -He wished, as he went across the quadrangle, that his heart was not -beating quite so quickly and that his brain was clearer. Moy-Thompson's -study was dark save for the circle of light from the lamp on his table -by the fire; the firelight leapt and danced, flinging the classical -busts on the high shelves into a sudden derisive proximity to the white -beard at the table, playing with the tables and chairs, dancing with -flashes of golden light up and down the heavy, somber carpet. - -Moy-Thompson was writing gravely, intently, at the table, and did not -raise his head until he heard the click of the door. Then he put his pen -down slowly, looked up and smiled. - -“Ah, Mr. Perrin—do come in. I hope it wasn't inconvenient for you coming -at this time? Sit down, won't you?” - -Perrin pulled himself up suddenly; his thin nervous figure showed -haggard and worn in the firelight. What did this mean? He tried to -collect his thoughts. No, thank you, he would rather stand. - -“But you must be tired—you must indeed. Really, I insist—this easy-chair -by the fire.” Perrin, clutching his mortar-board between his hands, sat -down. - -“I'm sure you 'll excuse me whilst I just address this letter—hum, -yes—only a minute.” A silence, during which some heavy clock ticked -solemnly in the distance: “Of course, he 'll wait—of course, he 'll -wait—of course, he 'll wait.” - -At last, Moy-Thompson swung round, away from the table and faced Perrin. -His heard seemed to bristle with friendliness. He was very large, his -clothes were very black, his fingers were very long. - -“Now, Mr. Perrin, I'm not going to keep you long—really, only a few -moments, hum, yes. I'm sure you 're tired after a long day. But come, -Mr. Perrin (this, leaning forward genially), we've got to discuss this -matter, you know. Let us be friendly about it. I can assure you that I -have nothing but the most friendly feelings towards you in this matter.” - -Perrin flushed and half rose from his chair. “No, please, Mr. Perrin, I -beg of you—please be seated—hum—I really am most anxious to prove to you -that I am nothing but friendly in this matter.” Moy-Thompson paused and -tapped his nails, with sharp little rattling noises, one against -the other. “Now, Mr. Perrin, I'm sure you must agree with me that a -disturbance like that of this afternoon is exceedingly unusual and I may -say with very considerable truth that no one who was present was more -completely and remarkably surprised than myself. I do not pretend,” he -went on with a smile and lifting a deprecating hand towards the fire, -“that I am so pleasantly self-assured as to believe that there is no -unsound plank in this good ship of ours; there are many things, I am -sure, that would be the better for a newer and a younger hand, but I had -supposed—and naturally supposed, I think—that any complaints that there -were would be brought to the committee or myself privately. From time to -time complaints have been brought to me and I may say that I have always -dealt with them to the best of my ability, but—” here Moy-Thompson -paused, looked at Perrin, and then smiled very gently—“do you know that -you are the very last man whom I should have expected to have come to me -with any complaint of any kind?” - -Perrin had made no reply, had attempted to make no reply to this long -speech. He sat in his chair without any other movement than the regular -and rapid turning of the mortarboard between his hands. His head was -bent towards the floor. At this last word he looked up as though he -would reply and half started from his chair. - -Moy-Thompson held forward his large white hand. - -“No—please, a moment—may I not explain myself? although it needs surely -no explanations. I mean the admirable relationship that has always, I -believe, existed between us. I must confess that if I had yesterday been -questioned as to which of my staff I could most securely trust and honor -I should have named yourself.” He paused and then slowly added, “I -need scarcely remind you that it is only a fortnight since there passed -between us, in this very room, an interview of the most friendly and -confidential description.” - -There was no word from the chair. - -“You must remember that, during the many years that have passed since -you have been with me here you have made no kind of complaint. You have -had many, very many opportunities, for voicing things freely to me. I -have always been frank with you—you 've seized none of them. All the -more amazing, the more compelling my surprise then, at what occurred -to-day.” - -At last there was a pause that demanded a reply. The room was filled -with silence and neither man moved. Perrin was striving to clear his -brain. What was he to say? What had he come to say? Where were all the -things that he had thought out so carefully in his study? Moreover, -it was true; it was all amazingly true. They had been friends, he and -Moy-Thompson, all these years, great friends. Other members of the -staff may have rebelled and quarreled and disputed, but he had always -supported authority. He remembered now with a kind of dazed surprise the -pleasure that he had taken in those little quarter-of-an-hour interviews -in that very room. This momentous and horrible fact rose now before -him and froze any reply that he might make. He had been Moy-Thompson's -devoted henchman for twenty years—was he the right man to head a -rebellion now? - -In spite of the long silence he made no reply. - -“Well,” said Mr. Moy-Thompson, rubbing one hand against another, “I see -that you admit, Mr. Perrin, that there is justice in some of my remarks. -These things are facts—that you have been twenty years without a -complaint, and that until this afternoon you and I (here more rubbing -of the hands) were working shoulder to shoulder at a hard task that -demanded our friendly cooperation. Then suddenly there is this outbreak; -an outbreak unprecedented in the annals of our school; an outbreak for -which there is no obvious reason; an outbreak that is in its nature, I -should imagine, extremely foreign to your own character and habits—” -Mr. Moy-Thompson paused an instant and then suddenly, “Well, what is the -only explanation? What can be the only explanation?” - -Still no word from Mr. Perrin. - -“Well,” continued Mr. Moy-Thompson genially, “overwork, of course. -Overwork. We have perhaps all noticed that, during these last weeks, -things were being a little too much for you—hum—yes—natural enough, -natural enough. We 're all tired at times and it's a long time since you -were out of harness—yes, indeed.” - -“I 'm not tired.” - -“Ah, well, perhaps the onlookers, in some cases, see the most of the -game. But you must admit that it affords an admirable and sufficient -excuse for to-day's little episode—the only excuse indeed (this a little -more sharply)—but an excuse that we all of us—I speak for others as -well as myself—are only too ready to seize. A holiday, my friend, a -holiday—there we have our doctor's medicine.” - -Out of the waters of misery that were closing about him the man raised -his head. Of all the many things that had come upon him this was the -worst. He faced it with despair—he knew as he heard the other man's -words pour along like a river that he had nothing to say. How could he -make a fine rebel when the day before yesterday he had been assisting -and abetting? How could he make a fine rebel when they all thought that -he was merely overdone? How could he make a fine rebel when instead of -the terror that he thought that he had brought he found only a gentle -contempt and the opinion that he was tired and needed a holiday? - -Somewhere, in the back attics of his brain, something was telling him -that this was not quite so simple as it appeared—that this old man in -his dark room was playing as elaborate a game as did ever Philip II in -the dark recesses of his palace at Madrid. And he saw, \ although his -head was buzzing, that there was, in that plan, good wisdom of a kind. -To have Perrin back again, in the chains of the old familiar authority, -was to have Perrin silenced, humbled—finally quieted. But how was he to -battle with these things? They were too clever for him; he knew that the -accumulated years of tradition behind him, the heaping together of those -many, many times when he had knocked on that study door, the solemn -consciousness of the obsequious attentions that he had so often paid to -that white beard, these things rose and defeated him—defeated him on the -last occasion that the chances of battle were to be offered him. - -Yet he tried to say something. - -He spoke in a tired, passionless voice. - -“I had reason,” he said slowly, “for what I did. I meant what I said and -I mean it now. You have made this place hateful to all of us and I -want to hand in my resignation now. I had hoped that what I did this -afternoon might have brought matters to a head, might have helped us all -to act together as a body. But they 're jealous of me—if anyone else had -done it—” - -His head dropped—his voice ceased. Then he repeated, drearily, “I want -to hand in my resignation.” - -The clock ticked on solemnly. At last Moy-Thompson spoke, very gently -and a little sadly: - -“I am sorry, extremely sorry, if, after all these years you feel that I -have acted unjustly towards you, but I hope that you will not think me -unfriendly—my last wish is to appear in any way unfriendly—if I say that -this opinion of yours—a little hurriedly assumed, perhaps—owes something -to the mental fatigue to which I have already alluded. All I beg of you -is to wait before you hand in your resignation, to wait until you are -stronger both in mind and body. I think I may say that the governors -will only too readily allow you a holiday during next term—when the -summertime is with us you will return alert and fresh in body and mind.” - -Tick—tick—tick went the clock—“Here's a good offer—Here's a good offer.” - -“I wish to hand in my resignation,” said Mr. Perrin. - -“Of course if you will, you will. I can only say that we shall all be -genuinely sorry. Let me, at any rate, implore you to wait before making -your decision. In a few weeks' time perhaps—” - -“I meant every word that I said this afternoon. This place is -scandalous—scandalous—” - -“I regret that you feel that. I'm extremely sorry that you feel about it -as you do. But at least let me beg you to wait for a few weeks. Write to -me. Write to the governors—write to anyone you please. But wait—let me -urge you to wait.” - -Mr. Moy-Thompson's hand was laid upon Perrin's knee. Again there was -silence. Then at last: - -“Very well. What does it matter? I will wait. I haven't the strength to -break with anything. I'm no use—no good.” He got to his feet and then -suddenly broke out: - -“But I tell you, I'm right. You 're too clever for me, but I'm right. -What I've said is true, it's all true. You 're a devil. You've had us -all at your mercy for years and years. You've worked us against one -another until you've rubbed all our courage and finer pieces off us and -you 're pleased—you 're pleased. You've had a fine life of it—you, a -God's parson—and you've made money and you've broken hearts and you've -eaten and drunk—and you 're too clever for us, but there's hell for you -somewhere. I see it and I know it.” - -He broke away and burst stumbling from the room. - -It may be that for once the man whom he left heard the sound of some -judgment in his ears, for he stood, long after every stir in the world -about him had passed away, staring, without movement and afraid. III. - -But Perrin had no exultation in him; it was not of Moy-Thompson he was -thinking. The last stones of his fortress had been removed from his -defenses and he stood utterly naked to the world. - -He did not attempt now to gather his resources about him. He cared no -more for any face that he might present to the world. He had reached the -heart of his kingdom and he saw that he was no good—no good at all—an -utterly useless man. - -He had not even the pluck to defy Moy-Thompson, to fling his resignation -in his face. He was no good. - -He was very cold when he reached his room, and as he pushed back the -door he saw Traill. Traill was standing in the middle of the room, -looking very shy. - -Perrin was not glad or sorry to see him. He had no feeling about him at -all. - -“Good evening.” - -“Good evening.” - -“Won't you sit down?” - -“No, thank you. I only came in for a moment.” - -“Oh, all right. What is it?” - -“Oh! Only I wanted to tell you—that—well—oh, that I thought you were -awfully plucky this afternoon.” - -“Oh! Thank you. It wasn't plucky really—it was a very foolish thing to -do.” - -“No—really—the other fellows did n't understand—” - -“Oh, yes! They understood very well.” - -Traill paused. He obviously hated the whole affair but was determined to -go through with it. - -“Well, I say, I'm leaving to-morrow, you know—not coming back—and I -thought that it would be a pity if we parted—well, sick with each other. -What do you say? We've had one or two turn-ups, but we 're friends, are -n't we?” - -“Of course.” - -“Shake hands, will you?” - -They shook hands. - -“Right you are. Look Isabel and me up in town one day, won't you? Always -awfully pleased. Well, I must be going.” - -And, with a sigh of relief, Traill moved away. - -But what did the boy know, what could the boy know, of the man's utter -despair as he sat there through the night? Traill went out to his life. -“He had made it up with the chap,” but Perrin, in the dark, was looking, -with staring eyes, at Himself. At last, that gray figure that had -haunted him so closely during these weeks was with him face to face. - -And, with the coming dawn, he knew what it was that he would do. - - - - -CHAPTER XV—THE GOLDEN VIEW I. - -WITH the coming dawn he knew what it was that he would do. He waited, -sitting in his chair without moving and watching, with unseeing eyes, -the gray cold pane of his window and the last faint glow of the sinking -coals that lingered in the grate. He did not know what he could have -said to Moy-Thompson, what he ought to have said. He thought that he -might have faced it out better had the interview been in some other -place. There were so many things that hung about that room and made it -impossible for him to speak. He had not known that it would be so hard. - -But he did not care, he really did not care. He saw vaguely that all -these many years the growing suspicion that he was really no good had -been coming upon him but he had never confessed it—now it stared him in -the face. If he had been any good he would have defied Moy-Thompson. -He knew that he had not the courage, at his time in life, to go out and -face the world again and get some other work to do. Also he had not the -courage to come back another term and go on with the work here. He had -not even had the pluck to hate Traill properly, as any other man would -do. - -And yet he did not feel that it was all his fault. He was a pleasant -enough man if only someone had tried to like him—and then these -headaches—and then those days when his brain was so strangely -confused—no, it was not entirely his fault. And, last of all, if Isabel -Desart.—-Well, why think about it? They all mocked him—even Moy-Thompson -did not think him important enough to be angry with. He was very sick -and tired of life. II. - -The dawn came late in those winter mornings but the house was very -silent as the heavy black behind the window lifted to a lighter gray. -Some clock downstairs chimed and Perrin raised his eyes from the black -cold grate and saw that soon it would be sunrise. - -The things in his room were ghostly shapes, but he knew where everything -was and he moved about, himself the greatest ghost of all, making -everything tidy. He put the books back into their places, he tore up the -pile of papers on the table, he laid a note that he had written on the -middle of the cloth where it could easily be seen. - -At last he stood for a moment and looked at it all in silence, then with -a little sigh he took his greatcoat from the back of the door where it -was hanging, put it on and went out. He passed very softly through the -solemnly-dark corridors, down the cold stone stairs, and along the -dark hall that presented such odd shapes and figures to him in the -half-light. - -He swung back the bolts and bars of the hall-door and stepped out into -the mysterious garden. He drew a deep breath at the sweetness of it; -its beauty crowded upon him as though with eager fingers, taking hold of -him, almost as though it were pleading with him to stay and take pause -before he made any decision. It was an ordinary enough garden in the -daytime, but now was the most strangely moving moment in all the cycle -of the hours when the sun had sent word of his gorgeous coming and when -the brown earth and the seeds and roots held by it stirred to share in -the pageant. The breeze in Perrin's face was pure with all the freshness -of the first moments of the day and all about him he seemed to hear the -movement and stirring of countless things. Afterwards in the cold winter -day bare branches would rattle against the hard light of the frozen -sun—now everything was wrapt in curtains of silver mist. - -He left the garden and went down the Brown Hill towards the sea. In -front of him a great sheet of sky was slowly catching light into the -threads and fibers of it. From its foundations where the dark band of -the land hid it great fountains of color were held behind the cloud -and the suggestion of their richness was passing already into the -thickly-curtained gray. - -Mr. Perrin turned aside towards the bottom of the hill and struck off -across a frozen field into a bare and leafless wood. The light was -growing with every moment, the bare outlines of the country stood out -sharp and black against the surrounding gray and the great bank of cloud -was slowly filling with golden light. The wood was very still; through -the heart of it a little avenue of trees ran—now they were gaunt and -stiff in two lines with the road cold and gray between. At the end -of the little avenue there is suddenly a break, a sharp cliff running -sharply to the white road beneath, and then below the road again there -is the sea. It is a wonderful view from here, for the sea curves like a -silver bowl into infinite distance. Through the country-side it is known -as “The Golden View,” not golden now, however, but mysteriously moving -and heaving beneath its gray veil with the faintest threads of color -beginning to interlace the fabric of it. - -Mr. Perrin stood, a curiously tiny figure, at the end of the avenue and -looked at the gray cliff at his feet. Behind him was the dark wood; in -front of him a vast and swiftly-changing world. Very soon, as the sun -rose above the sea, the world would be, once again, undisturbed. “To -fling oneself down on to that cold white road” was a very easy death to -die, but even now as he faced it he wondered whether he had the courage. -He shivered in the cold and drew his coat closer about him. - -He thought that he would walk about a little. He turned round and saw -coming towards him, through the leafless trees, Isabel Desart. III. - -He did not know what to do or say; at the first sight of her he thought -that his eyes had deceived him and, because at this supreme moment of -his life he was thinking of her, he had imagined that he saw her. She -was dressed also in gray, with a gray cloak and a little round gray hat. - -And then in the hearty ring of her voice he knew that it was no ghost. -“Oh!” he said faintly, taking a step towards her, and his voice was full -of pain. - -“Good morning, Mr. Perrin,” she said very easily; “I could not sleep and -I had thought that I would come down here to see the sun rise—and then -I saw you pass through the school gates and I was impertinent enough to -follow you. I want to talk to you.” - -“To talk to me?” - -He noticed suddenly that he was cold and that his teeth were chattering. - -“Yes. Let us walk on to Rayner's Point. We ought to get there just as -the sun rises.” - -He followed her as she turned down the path. His mind had been so full -of what he had intended to do that he felt that she must have known. -He glanced at her almost guiltily as he followed her. How beautiful she -was! He pulled his coat closer about his ears. - -“I hope you didn't very much want to be alone,” she said smiling at him; -“but really, I couldn't miss my opportunity. I have been wanting—very -badly—ever since yesterday afternoon—to speak to you.” - -“Since yesterday afternoon,” he repeated bitterly. “You must feel as -they all do, about that.” - -“I don't know how the others feel,” she answered almost fiercely. “That -is no business of mine. But I understood, I sympathized, a great deal -more than you would believe—and I wanted to tell you so.” - -“You couldn't understand—you couldn't sympathize. It doesn't touch you -anywhere. You 're going to-day and you won't come back. Well, don't -think of any of us again. Don't try and help us—it only makes it worse -for us.” - -“No, please; that is unkind and untrue. If you would let me I would -understand—and even if I am going away it would be something for both of -us if we knew that we had parted friends, that—” - -But suddenly he interrupted her, standing in her path, his face working -most strangely, muttering words that she could not catch. She wondered -what he was going to do, he looked so odd and wild against the breaking -dawn. Then he seemed to turn from her with a gesture that had some -strange greatness in it; he faced the sea, his hands clenched behind his -back and in the still hush of the morning she heard his sobs. - -“Oh, please—don't,” and then she stayed in infinite distress waiting for -him to turn. His figure was so desolate, so thin and ragged, in the cold -morning air, and her heart was full of the deepest aching pity. - -At last he turned round to her. “Let us go on,” he said roughly; “I -am all in pieces—don't mind me—you shouldn't have spoken to me like -that—it's more than I can stand.” Then after a pause he went on, “You -mustn't talk of our being friends. A man like myself cannot be a friend -of yours.” - -“That is for me to say,” she answered gently. “I have been so wrong all -this term. I have only made things worse instead of better and I did so -want to help. It's been awful this term and yesterday afternoon was the -worst of all. Oh! If you only knew how I had agreed with the things you -said!” - -“It is n't any use,” he answered. “It's too late.” - -“It isn't too late. It's never too late. If you won't let me help you, -why then perhaps you 'll help me.” - -“Help you?” - -“Yes—if you knew how miserable it will always make me if we part like -this—I shall never cease my regret. Please, tell me a little of what -you've felt, of what you 're going to do. It isn't kind to me to leave -it like this.” - -There was a long silence. She had never before realized how young she -was; her inexperience faced her most desperately, so that she felt -bitterly that she could not touch even the fringe of his troubles. Every -word that she uttered seemed an impertinence and yet she knew that if -she went away without speaking she would regret it all her life. - -At last he turned round to her; he seemed to have gained absolute -control of himself and his voice was quite steady. - -“No—I hadn't meant to be rude like that—only you took me by surprise. -I've made a wretched muddle of things and, since yesterday afternoon, -I 've seen that I'm a complete failure in every possible sense of the -word. You are so splendid in all ways—and you are going to have such a -splendid life—that we are at the opposite ends of the world, you and I.” - -She noticed, whilst he was speaking, that his speech was clear of all -its little affectations and pomposities. He seemed another man from the -strange creature whom she had known before. - -“No, we are not at the opposite ends of the world. I have felt so -miserable all this term. I have felt that in some way I ought to have -made things better between you and Archie—Mr. Traill—all that wretched -quarreling—and yet I felt so helpless.” - -“No. That would have been inevitable without you. An older man feeling -that he was being jockeyed out of his place by a younger man and the -younger man resenting the older man's interference—and neither Traill -nor I were, I suppose, very tactful. And there we were pressed up -against one another with the whole place working on our nerves. No, you -had n't very much to do with it.” - -But it showed how young she was that she did not see the half-tender, -half-ironical look that he flung upon her. In his heart he was wondering -whether he would tell her, but something, perhaps her very absence of -all self-consciousness, held him back— - -He went on, softly, almost as though he were talking to himself. “And -then, these last weeks it all got on my nerves to such an extent that I -was nearly off my head. I wanted to kill Traill. I might have killed him -if I had been a stronger man. I felt that it was all so unfair that -he should have everything—youth, health, prospects, -popularity—everything—and I nothing. I had never been a likable man, -perhaps, but there seemed to be no reason. I had it in me, I thought, to -do things—” - -He stopped for a moment and looked at the sea; its gray was being shot -with blue and gold and the banks of mist on the horizon were rolling -back like gates before the sun. - -“—And then, yesterday afternoon, when Moy-Thompson was making his -speech, I seemed to see suddenly that it was the place—the system—that I -had been up against all this time, and not any one person—and suddenly -I burst out, scarcely knowing, you know—and I thought I'd done rather a -big thing. I thought the other men would be glad that I had led the way. -I thought Moy-Thompson would be furious and frightened, but the other -men were amused and Moy-Thompson laughed—and suddenly everything cleared -and I saw what this place had made of me. They say that it takes a man -all a lifetime to know himself—well, I 've got that knowledge early. I -know what I am.” - -She suddenly put out her hand and he caught it fiercely in his. “You 're -going to have a fine life,” he said; “there are so many people that you -will do good to—but you have been everything to one useless creature.” - -“I shall always be proud to be your friend.” Curiously, in the growing -light, with that strange, uncouth figure holding her hand, she felt more -strongly moved than she had ever been before—yes, even Archie Traill's -wooing had not touched her as this did. - -“I'm too young to know all that it has meant to you,” at last she said -brokenly, “but I shall never, all my life through, forget you. I shall -want, please, always to hear—” - -“To hear?” His lips twisted into a strange smile. “Ah, you must n 't -want that.” - -“Why not? What are you going to do—now?” - -“To do?” He was still strangely smiling. “What is there for me to do? -I am too old to struggle outside for a living. I have no means and I am -fit for nothing but schoolmastering—” - -“Cannot you come back here—in spite of it all?” - -“Come back?” - -“Yes.” - -“Moy-Thompson wants me to come back. He thinks that I am so unimportant -that—it does n't matter.” - -“You will—promise that you will!” - -“Ah, it is all so useless,” he said, shaking his head. “Before, when I -had built up a kind of opinion of myself it was hard enough, but now, -when that is all gone—” - -“Oh! I wonder if I can make you understand”—her eyes were flaming—“you -must—you must. Don't you see that you 're being given such a chance! -Think of the pluck of it—after all that has happened—to come back, -knowing what they think of you, knowing what you think of yourself. Oh! -I envy you. I believe the only thing we 're in the world for is to have -courage—that answers everything—and some of us have such fat, easy lives -that we've no chance at all. But you to come back with your teeth set, -to build it all up again, to will it all back! Oh! it's splendid! -And Archie and I will have our happy, ordinary existences—just going -along—and you 'll be here doing the finest thing in the world. I'd -change places with you to-morrow,” she magnificently ended up. - -“You see it like that?” he said slowly almost to himself. - -“Of course I see it like that. Why, I believe that's what all this -term's been for—to bring to a head—to show you your great chance. That -'s life—everything leading up to the one big thing—and now this is -yours.” - -“My God!” he whispered, “If I could!” - -“You must,” she answered, “I believe in you—come back—fight it—win.” - -But he shook his head very slowly, very sadly. - -“No; I'm not the kind of man to do a thing like that. I 've had my -spirit broken—this place has broken it.” - -“No; it is not. I know it is not. Here's your chance—take it.” - -“All these years,” he answered grimly, “twenty years—it's a long time -for a man. I can't begin all over again.” - -“Twenty years are nothing. You 've never seen things straight as you see -things now—It 's never been the same before.” - -He turned round and stared fiercely into her eyes. - -“Do you believe I could do it?” he said. - -“Of course I do.” - -“Win back respect—make them forget yesterday—go on with the old -torture—” he shuddered and buried his face in his hands. - -“I believe in you,” she answered steadfastly. - -He drew a deep breath. “At last!” - -“I believe in you.” - -“You are not saying that only to comfort met” - -“No; you know that I am not.” - -“To come back—to go on—to face it all.” - -“It's the hardest thing and the finest thing—I shall know—I shall always -remember.” - -As he looked at her he knew that he might kiss her and that she would -not have drawn back—but she was not his. He faced it out in that -brief moment—all the ignominy, the mockery, the drudgery—the hell that -Moffatt's was. Was it really his chance? Was he really in some way a -new man, or was it only the passing emotion that moved him? Could he do -anything still with his poor old wreck of a soul? - -There was a long silence. They had reached Rayner's Point. Here the sea -swept, in a great arc to left and right. Sea and sky were very faintly -blue. The sun broke the golden bands that bound it, the light flooded -the brown earth of the winter fields, the shining mist glittered through -the brown wood that hung like a cloud behind them on the horizon, a -white gull, breaking the stillness with its cries, swerved past them out -to sea. - -Perrin drew a deep breath. “If you will help me, I 'll come back,” he -said. - -The new day shone about their heads. IV. - -Later, at the Comber's breakfast-table there was confusion. Mrs. Comber -was flushed and happy. It was true that this happy release was only for -a few weeks, but her “Freddie” was more genial and pleasant than he had -been since the days of their honeymoon and her boys were returning that -afternoon. - -“Freddie—another sausage—Oh! My dear Isabel, here's a bill from that -dressmaker again and she sent one only last week; she can't leave one -alone. Really, Freddie, another one won't hurt you—and I told her only -a month ago that I couldn't pay for that black silk until Easter—well, -some marmalade, then, if you won't have another—what train did you say -you were going to catch, Isabel? I'm so glad it's a sunny day—you were -up quite early weren't you, dear?—and I meant to go in and see what Mrs. -Dormer had to say about yesterday afternoon, you know, Mr. Perrin—and -now I shan't have a minute because Jane's been so silly about Freddie's -shirts and his pyjamas—she missed them when they came from the wash, so -that really it—but what did you think of it all, Isabel dear?” - -“Of what all?” asked Isabel. - -“Why, Mr. Perrin, of course. Poor man, of course he's been queer all -this time—anyone could see, but really—I wonder what he 'll do now?” - -“I expect that he 'll come back,” said Isabel. - -“Come back? Well! But of course Moy-Thompson will have him back if he -can. That would keep him quiet. Then he could pretend to the governors -that it was simply nerves—which it was mostly, I should think. I'm sure -we were all nervy enough for anything. I'm sure I've been most queer all -this term. And then his quarreling like that with Archie and everything. -Oh! Yes, Moy-Thompson will keep him if he can—under his thumb.” - -Freddie Comber had left the room. The two women were alone. - -Mrs. Comber was sitting at the table, with her mouth wide open, like a -fish, counting on the cloth with her fingers in order to remember the -things that she ought to do. - -“Dear?” said Isabel. - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Comber, smiling. - -“I want you to do something for me.” - -“Anything in the world, dear, you know. Five, Mrs. Johnson's hill for -that ironing; six, Freddie's socks; seven, the suit—” - -“No, dear, please—just for a minute I want you to listen altogether to -me.” - -“Yes, dear.” Mrs. Comber stopped her counting. - -“Well, it's this. Mr. Perrin is coming back. I saw him this morning—” - -“You saw him this morning! Isabel!” - -“Yes. We both went out to see the sun rise—to the Golden View. He talked -to me. Dear, I never understood things before—things or people. There -must be so many people like that who are so splendid inside and so dull -outside.” - -“I don't want to be unkind, dear,” Mrs. Comber answered slowly, “but I -cannot believe that Mr. Perrin is splendid inside—I can't really.” - -“Oh, but he is, he is! He's coming back like a hero. Why, when I think -of Archie and myself and our lives—and all the other people with lives -like them—and then when I think of all the awkward, bad-mannered, stiff, -jolty people who are heroes every day they live, I'm ashamed!” - -Mrs. Comber was astonished. “Well, my dear,” she said, “it does seem to -have affected you—really. Of course I want to be kind to everybody—even -Mrs. Dormer—and of course I 'll believe what you say, and I'm sure I'm -very sorry for him, and it won't be pleasant for him coming back.” - -“No,” said Isabel. “It won't—no one ought ever to come back here -again—but if only you 'll be a friend to him— - -“You see,” she went on again, “he's the kind of man whom those things -matter to so frightfully. And no one's ever taken any interest in him or -any trouble—and now if you and I—” - -“Anything,” said Mrs. Comber, “that you want me to do.” - -“I sometimes think,” said Isabel, “that the world's topsy-turvy. People -seem to put so much value on all the outside things, and if someone's -ugly and awkward—” - -Her gaze through the window was arrested by the sight of a cab at the -door of the Lower School. The porter came out with a brown portmanteau—a -very old brown portmanteau—and he put it on the cab. It was a very old -cab, and a very old horse and a very old driver. - -Mr. Perrin, wearing a bowler that was too small for him and in his old -shabby overcoat, got into the cab. - -The bag bounced about on the roof as the old horse stumbled away. - -Would he come back and fight it out? She knew, with certain faith, that -he would. - -Would he win through? She did not know, but in the sun and glorious -beauty of that day she seemed to get her answer. - -Meanwhile the old cab rumbled down the Brown Hill. - -“It shall be all right, next term,” said Mr. Perrin. - - -THE END - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52211 *** |