ROLAND WHATELY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

ROLAND WHATELY
A Novel

BY
ALEC WAUGH
AUTHOR OF “THE LOOM OF YOUTH”
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1922
All Rights Reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Copyright, 1922,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
———
Set up and printed. Published September, 1922.
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.

To My Friend
CLIFFORD BAX

CONTENTS

PART I
THE OPENING ROUND

CHAPTER I
TWO HAPHAZARDS

IT began, I suppose, on a certain September afternoon, when Roland Whately traveled back to school by the three-thirty train from Waterloo. There were two afternoon trains to Fernhurst: one left London at three-thirty and arrived at a quarter to six; the other left at four-eighteen, stopped at every station between Basingstoke and Salisbury, waited twenty-five minutes at Templecombe for a connection, and finally reached Fernhurst at eight-twenty-three. It is needless to state that by far the greater part of the school traveled down by the four-eighteen—who for the sake of a fast train and a comfortable journey would surrender forty-eight minutes of his holidays?—and usually, of course, Roland accompanied the many.

This term, however, the advantages of the fast train were considerable. He was particularly anxious to have the corner bed in his dormitory. There was a bracket above it where he could place a candle, by the light of which he would be able to learn his rep. after “lights out.” If he were not there first someone else would be sure to collar it. And then there was the new study at the end of the passage; he wanted to get fresh curtains and probably a gas mantle: when once the school was back it was impossible, for at least a week, to persuade Charlie, the school custos, to attend to an odd job like that. And so he traveled back by a train that contained, of the three hundred boys who were on the Fernhurst roll, only a dozen fags and three timid Sixth-Formers who had distrusted the animal spirits of certain powerful and irreverent Fifth-Formers. On the first day, as on the last, privilege counts for little, and it is unpleasant to pass four hours under the seat of a dusty railway carriage.

It was the first time that Roland had been able to spend the first evening of a term in complete leisure. He walked quietly up to the house, went down to the matron’s room and consulted the study and dormitory lists. He found that he was on the Sixth-Form table, had been given the study for which he had applied, and was in the right dormitory. He bagged the bed he wanted, and took his health certificate round to the Chief’s study.

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

“Yes, thank you, sir.”

“Feeling ready for football? They tell me you’ve an excellent chance of getting into the XV.?”

“I hope so, sir.”

He went over to the studies and inspected the gas fittings. Yes, he would certainly need a new mantle, and he must try to see if Charlie couldn’t fit him up with a new curtain. After a brief deliberation Charles decided that he could; a half crown changed hands, and as Roland strolled back from the lodge the Abbey clock struck half-past six. Over two hours to prayers. He had done all his jobs, and there didn’t seem to be a soul in the place. He began to wonder whether, after all, it had been worth his while to catch that early train: it had been a dull journey, two hours in the company of three frightened fags, outhouse fellows whom he didn’t know, and who had huddled away in a corner of the carriage and talked in whispers. If, on the other hand, he had waited for the four-eighteen he would at that moment be sitting with five or six first-class fellows, talking of last year’s rags, of the new prefects, and the probable composition of the XV. He would be much happier there. And as for the dormitory and study, well, he’d have probably been able to manage if he had hurried from the station. He had done so a good many times before. Altogether he had made a bit of an ass of himself. An impetuous fool, that was what he was.

And for want of anything better to do, he mouched down to Ruffer’s, the unofficial tuck-shop. There was no one he knew in the front of the shop, so he walked into the inside room and found, sitting in a far corner, eating an ice, Howard, one of the senior men in Morgan’s.

“Hullo!” he said. “So you’ve been ass enough to come down by the early train as well?”

“Yes, I was coming up from Cornwall, and it’s the only way I could make the trains fit in. A bad business. There’s nothing to do but eat; come and join me in an ice.”

Howard was only a very casual acquaintance; he was no use at games; he had never been in the same form as Roland, and fellows in the School house usually kept pretty much to themselves. They had only met in groups outside the chapel, or at roll-call, or before a lecture. It was probably the first time they had ever been alone together.

“Right you are!” said Roland. “Mr. Ruffer, bring me a large strawberry ice and a cup of coffee.”

But the ice did not last long, and they were soon strolling up the High Street, with time heavy on their hands. Conversation flagged; they had very little in common.

“I know,” said Howard. “Let’s go down to the castle grounds; they’ll probably have a band, and we can watch the dancing.”

Halfway between the station and the school, opposite the Eversham Hotel, where parents stopped for “commem” and confirmation, was a public garden with a band stand and well-kept lawns, and here on warm summer evenings dances would promote and encourage the rustic courtships of the youthful townsfolk. During the term these grounds were strictly out of bounds to the school; but on the first night rules did not exist, and besides, no one was likely to recognize them in the bowler hats and colored ties that would have to be put away that night in favor of black poplin and broad white straw.

It was a warm night, and they leaned against the railing watching the girls in their light print dresses waltz in the clumsy arms of their selected.

“Looks awfully jolly,” said Howard. “They don’t have a bad time, those fellows. There are one or two rippingly pretty girls.”

“And look at the fellows they’re dancing with. I can’t think how they can stand it. Now look there, at that couple by the stand. She’s a really pretty girl, while her man is pimply, with a scraggy mustache and sweating forehead, and yet look how she’s leaning over his shoulder; think of her being kissed by that.”

“I suppose there’s something about him.”

“I suppose so.”

There was a pause; Roland wished that difference of training and position did not hold them from the revel.

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

“Well, I dare you to.”

“Dare say you do. I’m not having any. I don’t run risks in a place where I’m known.”

As a matter of fact, Roland did not run risks anywhere, but he wanted Howard to think him something of a Don Juan. One is always ashamed of innocence, and Howard was one of those fellows who naturally bring out the worst side of their companions. His boisterous, assertive confidence was practically a challenge, and Roland did not enjoy the rôle of listener and disciple, especially as Howard was, by the school standards, socially his inferior.

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

“Do you see that?” said Roland.

“What about it?”

“Well, I mean....”

The girls were coming back, and suddenly, to Roland’s surprise, embarrassment and annoyance, Howard walked forward and raised his hat.

“Lonely?” he said.

“Same as you.”

“Like a walk, then?”

“All right, if your friend’s not too shy.”

And before Roland could make any protest he was walking, tongue-tied and helpless, on the arm of a full-blown shop girl.

“Well, you’re a cheerful sort of chap, aren’t you?” she said at last.

“Sorry, but you see I wasn’t expecting you!”

“Oh, she didn’t turn up, I suppose?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Oh, get along, I know you; you’re all the same. Why, I was talking to a boy last week....”

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

“All right, only don’t hold me too tight—sister’s looking.”

There was no need to talk while they were dancing, and he was glad to be able to collect his thoughts. It was an awkward business. She wasn’t on the whole a bad-looking girl; she was certainly too plump, but she had a nice smile and pretty hair; and he felt no end of a dog. But it was impossible to become romantic, for she giggled every time he tried to hold her a little closer, and once when his cheek brushed accidentally against hers she gave him a great push, and shouted, “Now, then, naughty!” to the intense amusement of another couple. Still, he enjoyed dancing with her. It would be something to tell the fellows afterwards. They would be sitting in the big study. Gradually the talk would drift round to girls. He would sit in silence while the others would relate invented escapades, prefaced by, “My brother told me,” or, “I saw in a French novel.” He would wait for the lull, then himself would let fall—oh! so gently—into the conversation, “a girl that I danced with in the castle grounds....”

The final crash of the band recalled him to the requirements of the moment, and the need for conversation. They sat on a seat and discussed the weather, the suitability of grass as a dancing floor, the superiority of a band over a piano. He introduced subject after subject, bringing them up one after another, like the successive waves of infantry in an attack. It was not a success. The first bars of a waltz were a great relief.

He jumped up and offered her his arm.

“From the school, aren’t you?” she said.

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

It was a blow, admittedly a blow. He had not imagined himself a shining success, but he had not thought that he was giving himself away quite as badly as that. They got on a great deal better though after it. They knew where they were, and he found her a very jolly girl, a simple creature, whose one idea was to be admired and to enjoy herself, an ambition not so very different from Roland’s. It was her sense of humor that beat him: she giggled most of the time; why he could not understand. It was annoying, because everyone stared at them, and Roland hated to be conspicuous. He was prepared to enjoy the illusion but not the reality in public. He was not therefore very sorry when the Abbey clock warned him that in a few minutes the four-eighteen would have arrived and that the best place for him was the School house dining room.

On the way back he met Howard.

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

“Oh, rot, my dear chap; but even if I did, I’ll bet you enjoyed yourself all right.”

“Perhaps I did. But that makes no difference. After all, you didn’t know I was going to. I’d never seen the girl before.”

“But one never has on these occasions, has one? One’s got to trust to luck; you know that as well as I do.”

“Of course, of course, but still....”

They argued it out till they reached the cloisters leading to the School house studies, exchanged there a cheery good-night and went their way. Five minutes later the four-eighteen was in; the study passages were filled with shouts; Roland was running up and down stairs, greeting his old friends. The incident was closed, and in the normal course of things it would never have been reopened.

That it was reopened was due entirely, if indirectly, to Roland’s laziness on a wet Sunday afternoon, halfway through October. It was a really wet afternoon, the sort of afternoon when there is nothing to be done but to pack one’s study full of really good chaps and get up a decent fug. Any small boy can be persuaded, with the aid of a shilling, to brew some tea, and there are few things better than to sit in the window-seat and watch the gravel courts turn to an enormous lake. Roland was peculiarly aware of the charm of an afternoon so spent as he walked across to his study after lunch, disquieted by the knowledge that his football boots wanted restudding and that the night before he had vowed solemnly that he would take them down to the professional before tea. It would be fatal to leave them any longer, and he knew it. The ground on Saturday had been too wet for football, and the whole house had gone for a run, during which Roland had worn down one of his studs on the hard roads, and driven a nail that uncomfortable hundredth of an inch through the sole of his boot. If he wore those boots again before they had been mended that hundredth of an inch would become a tenth of an inch, and make no small part of a crater in his foot. It was obviously up to him to put on a mackintosh and go down to the field at once. There was no room for argument, and Roland knew it, but....

It was very pleasant and warm inside the study and damnably unpleasant anywhere else. If only he were a prefect, and had a fag, how simple his life would become. His shoes would be cleaned for him, his shaving water would be boiled in the morning, his books would be carried down to his classroom, and on this rain-drenched afternoon he would only have to put his head outside the study door and yell “Fag!” and it would be settled. But he was not a prefect, and he had no fag. It was no use growling about it. He would have to go, of course he would have to go, then added as a corollary—yes, certainly, at three o’clock. By that time the weather might have cleared up.

But it had not cleared up by three o’clock, and Roland had become hopelessly intrigued by a novel by Wilkie Collins, called The Moonstone. He had just reached the place where Sergeant Cuff looks up at Rachel’s window and whistles The Last Rose of Summer. He could not desert Sergeant Cuff at such a point for a pair of football boots, and at three o’clock, with the whole afternoon before him. At half-past there would be tons of time. But by half-past three it was raining in the true Fernhurst manner, fierce, driving rain that whipped across the courts, heavy gusts of wind that shrieked down the cloisters. Impossible weather, absolutely impossible weather. No one but a fool would go out in it. He would wait till four, it was certain to have stopped a bit by then.

And by four o’clock it certainly was raining a good deal less, but by four o’clock some eight persons had assembled in the study and a most exciting discussion was in progress. Someone from Morgan’s had started a rumor to the effect that Fitzgerald, the vice-captain of the XV., was going to be dropped out of the side for the Tonwich match and his place given to Feversham, a reserve center from James’s. It was a startling piece of news that had to be discussed from every point of view.

First of all, would the side be improved? A doubtful matter. Fitzgerald had certainly been out of form this season, and he had played miserably in the last two matches, but he had experience; he would not be likely to lose his head in a big game, and Feversham, well, it would be his first school match. Altogether a doubtful issue, and, granted even that Feversham was better than Fitzgerald, would it be worth while in the long run to leave out the vice-captain and head of Buxton’s? Would it be doing a good service to Fernhurst football? Buxton’s was the athletic house; it had six school colors. The prestige of Fernhurst depended a good deal on the prestige of Buxton’s. Surely the prestige of Buxton’s was more important than a problematic improvement in the three-quarter line.

They argued it out for a quarter of an hour and then, just when the last point had been brought forward, and Roland had begun to feel that he was left with no possible excuse for not going down to the field, the tea arrived; and after that what chance did he stand? By the time tea was over it was nearly five o’clock. Choir practice would have started in a quarter of an hour: if he wanted to, he could not have gone down then. A bad business. But it had been a pleasant afternoon; it was raining like blazes still; very likely the ground would be again too wet for play to-morrow, and he would cut the walk and get his boots mended. No doubt things would pan out all right.

Things, however, did not on this occasion adapt themselves to Roland’s wishes. The rain stopped shortly after eight o’clock; a violent wind shrieked all night along the cloisters; next morning the violent wind was accompanied by bright sunshine; by half-past two the ground was almost dry. Roland played in his unstudded boots, and, as he had expected, the projecting hundredth of an inch sank deeply into his toe. Three days later he was sent up to the sanatorium with a poisoned foot.

And in the sanatorium he found himself in the same ward and alone with Howard, who was recovering from an attack of “flu” that had been incorrectly diagnosed as measles.

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

CHAPTER II
THE OUTCOME

WHEN two people are left alone together all day, with no amusement except their own conversation, they naturally become intimate, and as the episode of the dance was the only bond of interest between Howard and Roland, they turned to it at once. As soon as the matron had gone out of the room Howard asked if he had been forgiven.

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

“Seen anything of your girl since then?”

“Heavens! no. Have you?”

“I should jolly well think so; one doesn’t let a thing like that slip through one’s fingers in a hurry. I go out with her every Sunday, and as likely as not once or twice during the week.”

Roland was struck with surprise and admiration.

“But how on earth do you manage it?”

“Oh, it’s quite easy: in our house anyone can get out who wants to. The old man never spots anything. I just heave on a cap and mackintosh, meet her behind the Abbey and we go for a stroll along the Slopes.”

Roland could only ask too many questions and Howard was only too ready to answer them. He had seldom enjoyed such a splendid audience. He was not thought much of in the school, and to tell the truth he was not much of a fellow. He had absorbed the worst characteristics of a bad house. He would probably after he had left spend his evenings hanging about private bars and the stage doors of second-class music halls. But he was an interesting companion in the sanatorium, and he and Roland discussed endlessly the eternally fascinating subject of girls.

“The one thing that you must never do with a girl is to be shy,” Howard said. “That’s the one fatal thing that she’ll never forgive. You can do anything you like with any girl if only you go the right way about it. She doesn’t care whether you are good-looking or rich or clever, but if she feels that you know more than she does, that she can trust herself in your hands.... It’s all personality. If a girl tries to push you away when you kiss her, don’t worry her, kiss her again; she only wants to be persuaded; she’d despise you if you stopped; girls are weak themselves, so they hate weakness. You can take it from me, Whately, that girls are an easy game when you know the way to treat them. It would surprise you if you could only know what they were thinking. You’ll see them sitting at your father’s table, so demure, with their, ‘Yes, Mr. Howard,’ and their ‘No, Mr. Howard.’ You’d think they’d stepped out of the pages of a fairy book, and yet get those same girls alone, and in the right mood, my word....”

Inflammatory, suggestive stuff: the pimp in embryo.

And Roland was one of those on whom such persons thrive. He had always kept straight at school; he was not clever nor imaginative, but he was ambitious: and he had realized early that if he wanted to become a power in the school he must needs be a success at games. He had kept clear of anything that had seemed likely to impair his prowess on the field. But it was different for him here in the sanatorium, with no exercise and occupation. In a very little while he had become thoroughly roused. Howard had enjoyed a certain number of doubtful experiences; had read several of the books that appear in the advertisements of obscure French papers as “rare and curious.” He had in addition a good imagination. Within two days Roland’s one idea was to pick up at the first opportunity the threads of the romance he had so callously flung aside.

“There’ll be no difficulty about that, my dear fellow,” said Howard. “I can easily get Betty to arrange it. We meet every Sunday, and we have to walk right out beyond Cold Harbor. She says she feels a bit lonely going out all that way by herself. Now suppose she went out with your girl and you went out with me—that’d be pretty simple, wouldn’t it?”

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

“As easy as laughing.”

“But I shall feel an awful fool,” Roland insisted. “I shan’t know what to say or anything.”

“Don’t you worry about that, my dear fellow; you just look as if you did and keep your eyes open, and you’ll soon learn; these girls know a lot more than you would think.”

So it was arranged. Roland found by the time his foot was right again that he had let himself in for a pretty exacting program. It had all seemed jolly enough up at the sanatorium, but when he was back in the house, and life reëstablished its old values, he began to regret it very heartily. He didn’t mind going out with the girl—that would be quite exciting: besides it was an experience to which everyone had to come some time or other—but he did not look forward to a long walk with Howard every Sunday afternoon for the rest of the term.

“Whately, old son,” he said to his reflection in the glass as he shaved himself on the next Sunday morning, “you’ve made a pretty sanguinary fool of yourself, but you can’t clear out now. You’ve got to see it through.”

It was very awkward though when Anderson ran up to him in the cloisters with “Hullo, Whately, going out for a stroll? Well, just wait half-a-sec, while I fetch my hat.” Roland had an infernal job getting rid of him.

“But, my dear man,” Anderson had protested, “where on earth are you going? I’ve always thought you the most pious man in the house. But if it’s a smoke I’ll watch you, and if it’s a drink I’ll help you.”

“Oh, no, it’s not that. I’m going out with a man in Morgan’s.”

Anderson’s mouth emitted a long whistle of surprise.

“So our Whately has deserted his old friends? Ah, well, when one gets into the XV., I know.”

Roland could see that Anderson was offended.

But it was even worse when he came back to find his study full of seven indignant sportsmen wanting to know why on earth he had taken to going out for walks with “a dirty tick in Morgan’s, who was no use at anything and didn’t even wash.”

“He’s quite a decent chap,” said Roland weakly. “I met him in the san.”

“I dare say you did,” said Anderson; “we’re not blaming you for that. You couldn’t help it. But those sorts of things, one does try to live down.”

For days he was ragged about it, so much so that he hadn’t the face to say he had been going out with a girl. Such a statement should be a proud acknowledgment, not a confession. If ever he said he couldn’t go anywhere, or do something, the invariable retort was, “I suppose you’re going out for a walk with Howard.”

The School house was exclusive; it was insular; it was prepared to allow the possibility of its members having friends in the outhouses; there were good men in the outhouses, even in Morgan’s. But one had to be particular, and when it came to Whately, a man of whom the house was proud, deserting his friends for a greasy swine in Morgan’s who didn’t wash, well, the least one could do was to make the man realize that he had gone a little far.

It was a bad business, altogether a bad business, and Roland very much doubted whether the hour and a half he spent with Dolly was an adequate recompense. She was a nice girl, quite a nice girl, and they found themselves on kissing terms quickly enough. There were no signs of their getting any further, and, as a matter of fact, if there had been, Roland would have been extremely alarmed. He objected to awkward situations and intense emotions: he preferred to keep his life within the decent borders of routine. He wanted adventure certainly, but adventure bounded by the limits of the society in which he lived. He liked to feel that his day was tabulated and arranged; he hated that lost feeling of being unprepared; he liked to know exactly what he had to say to Dolly before he could hold her hand and exactly what he had to say before she would let him kiss her. It was a game that had to be rehearsed before one got it right; no actor enjoys his part before he has learned his words; when he had learned the rules it was great fun; kisses were pleasant things. He wrote a letter to his friend, Ralph Richmond, acquainting him of this fact.

My Dear Ralph,—Why haven’t you written to me, you lazy swine? I suppose you will say that you’re awfully hard worked, getting ready for Smalls. But I don’t believe it. I know how much I do myself.

It’s been quite a decent term. I got my colors and shall be captain of the house after the summer if the people I think are going to leave do leave. Think of me as a ruler of men. I’m having a pretty good slack in form and don’t have to do any work, except in French, where a fellow called Carus Evans, an awful swine, has his knife into me and puts me on whenever we get to a hard bit. However, as I never do much else I’m able to swot the French all right.

The great bit of news, though, is that I’ve met a girl in the town who I go out for walks with. I’m not really keen on her, and I think I prefer her friend, Betty (we go in couples). Betty’s much older and she’s dark and she makes you blush when she looks at you. Still, Dolly’s very jolly, and we go out for walks every Sunday and have great times. She lets me kiss her as much as I like. Now what do you think of it? Write and tell me at once. Yours ever,

Roland.

Two days later Roland received the following reply:

My Dear Roland,—So glad to hear from you again, and many congratulations on your firsts. I had heard about them as a matter of fact, and had been meaning to write to you, but I am very busy just now. April told me about it; she seemed awfully pleased. I must say she was looking jolly pretty; she thinks a lot of you. Sort of hero. If I were you I should think a bit more about her and a little less about your Bettys and Dollys.

I’m looking forward to the holidays. We must manage to have a few good rags somehow. The Saundersons are giving a dance, so that ought to be amusing. Ever yours,

Ralph.

Roland’s comment on this letter was “Jealous little beast.” He wished he hadn’t written to him. And why drag April in? He and April were great friends; they always had been. Once they had imagined themselves sweethearts. When they went out to parties they had always sat next each other during tea and held hands under the table; in general post Roland had often been driven into the center because of a brilliant failure to take the chair that was next to hers. They had kissed sometimes at dances in the shadow of a passage, and once at a party, when they had been pulling crackers, he had slipped on to the fourth finger of her left hand a brass ring that had fallen from the crumpled paper. She still kept that ring, although the days of courtship were over. Roland had altered since he had gone to Fernhurst. But they were great friends, and there was always an idea between the two families that the children might eventually marry. Mr. Whately was, indeed, fond of prefacing some remote speculation about the future with, “By the time Roland and April are married——”

There was no need, Roland felt, for Ralph to have dragged April into the business at all. He was aggrieved, and the whole business seemed again a waste and an encumbrance. Was it worth while? He got ragged in the house, and he had to spend an hour in Howard’s company before he met Dolly at all. Howard was really rather terrible; so conceited, so familiar; and now that he had found an audience he indulged it the whole time. He was at his worst when he attempted sentiment. Once when they were walking back he turned to Roland, in the middle of a soliloquy, with a gesture of profound disdain and resignation.

“But what’s all this after all?” he said. “It’s nothing; it’s pleasant; it passes the time, and we have to have some distractions in this place to keep us going. But it’s not the real thing; there’s all the difference in the world between this and the real thing. A kiss can be anything or nothing; it can raise one to—to any height, or it can be like eating chocolates. I’m not a chap, you know, who really cares for this sort of thing. I’m in love. I suppose you are too.”

And Roland, who did not want to be outdone, confessed that there was someone, “a girl he had known all his life.”

“But you don’t want a girl you’ve known all your life; love’s not a thing that we drift into; it must be sudden; it must be unexpected; it must hurt.”

Howard was a sore trial, and it was with the most unutterable relief that Roland learned that he was leaving at Christmas to go to a crammer’s.

“We must keep up with one another, old fellow,” Howard said on their last Sunday. “You must come and lunch with me one day in town. Write and tell me all about it. We’ve had some jolly times.”

Roland caught a glimpse of him on the last day, resplendent in an O.F. scarf, very loud and hearty, saying “good-by” to people he had hardly spoken to before. “You’ll write to me, won’t you, old fellow? Come and lunch with me when you’re up in town. The Regent Club. Good-by.” Since his first year, when the prefect for whom he had fagged, and by whom he had been beaten several times, had left, Roland had never been so heartily thankful to see any member of the school in old boys’ colors.

CHAPTER III
RALPH AND APRIL

RALPH RICHMOND was the son of an emotional woman and he had read too many novels. He took himself seriously: without being religious, he considered that it was the duty of every man to leave the world better than he found it. Such a philosophy may be natural to a man of thirty-six who sees small prospect of realizing his own ambition, and resorts to the consolation of a collective enthusiasm, but it is abnormal in a boy of seventeen, an age which usually sees itself in the stalls of a theater waiting for the curtain to rise and reveal a stage set with limitless opportunities for self-development and self-indulgence.

But Ralph had been brought up in an atmosphere of ideals; at the age of seven he gave a performance of Hamlet in the nursery, and in the same year he visited a lenten performance of Everyman. At his preparatory school he came under the influence of an empire builder, who used to appeal to the emotions of his form. “The future of the country is in your hands,” he would say. “One day you will be at the helm. You must prepare yourselves for that time. You must never forget.” And Ralph did not. He thought of himself as the arbiter of destinies. He felt that till that day his life must be a vigil. Like the knights of Arthurian romance, he would watch beside his armor in the chapel. In the process he became a prig, and on his last day at Rycroft Lodge he became a prude. His headmaster gave all the boys who were leaving a long and serious address on the various temptations of the flesh to which they would be subjected at their Public Schools. Ralph had no clear idea of what these temptations might be. Their results, however, seemed sufficient reason for abstention. If he yielded to them, he gathered that he would lose in a short time his powers of thought, his strength, his moral stamina; a slow poison would devour him; in a few years he would be mad and blind and probably, though of this he was not quite certain, deaf as well. At any rate he would be in a condition when the ability of detecting sound would be of slight value. These threats were alarming: their effect, however, would not have been lasting in the case of Ralph, who was no coward and also, being no fool, would have soon observed that this process of disintegration was not universal in its application. No; it was not the threat that did the damage: it was the romantic appeal of the headmaster’s peroration.

“After all,” he said, after a dramatic pause, “how can any one of you who has been a filthy beast at school dare to propose marriage to some pure, clean woman?”

That told; that sentiment was within the range of his comprehension; it was a beautiful idea, a chivalrous idea, worthy, he inappropriately imagined, of Sir Lancelot. He could understand that a knight should come to his lady with glittering armor and an unstained sword. At the time he did not fully appreciate the application of this image: he soon learned, however, that a night spent on one’s knees on the stone floor of a draughty chapel is a cold and lonely prelude to enchantment: a discovery that did not make him the more charitable to those who preferred clean linen and soft down.

It was only to be supposed, therefore, that he would receive Roland’s confidences with disgust. He had always felt a little jealous of April’s obvious preference for his friend, but he had regarded it as the fortune of war and had taken what pleasure he might in the part of confidant. To this vicarious excitant their intimacy indeed owed its strength. His indignation, therefore, when he learned of Roland’s rustic courtship was only exceeded by his positive fury when, on the first evening of the holidays, he went round to see the Curtises and found there Roland and his father. It was the height of hypocrisy. He had supposed that Roland would at least have the decency to keep away from her. It had been bad enough to give up a decent girl for a shop assistant, but to come back and carry on as though nothing had happened.... It was monstrous, cruel, unthinkable. And there was April, so clean and calm, with her thick brown hair gathered up in a loop across her forehead; her eyes, deep and gentle, with subdued colors, brown and a shade of green, and that delicate smile of simple trust and innocence, smiling at him, ignorant of how she had been deceived.

It must be set down, however, to Roland’s credit that he had felt a few qualms about going round at once to see the Curtises. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since he had held Dolly’s hand and protested to her an undying loyalty. He did not love her; the words meant nothing, and they both knew it; they were merely part of the convention of the game. Nor for that matter was he in love with April—- at least he did not think he was. He owed nothing to either of them. But conscience told him that, in view of the understanding that was supposed to exist between them, it would be more proper to wait a day or two. After all, one did not go to a theater the day after one’s father’s funeral, however eagerly one’s imagination had anticipated the event.

Things had, however, turned out otherwise. At a quarter to six Mr. Whately returned from town. He was the manager of a bank, at a salary of seven hundred and fifty pounds a year, an income that allowed the family to visit the theater, upper circle seats, at least once every holidays and provided Roland with as much pocket money as he needed. Mr. Whately walked into the drawing-room, greeted his son with the conventional joke about a holiday task, handed his wife a copy of The Globe, sat down in front of the fire and began to take off his boots.

“Nothing much in the papers to-day, my dear. Not much happening anywhere as a matter of fact. I had lunch to-day with Robinson and he called it the lull before the storm. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he wasn’t right. You can’t trust these Radicals.”

He was a scrubby little man: for thirty years he had worked in the same house; there had been no friction and no excitement in his life; he had by now lost any independence of thought and action.

“I’ve just found a splendid place, my dear, where you can get a really first-class lunch for one-and-sixpence.”

“Have you, dear?”

“Yes; in Soho, just behind the Palace. I went there to-day with Robinson. We had four courses, and cheese to finish up with. Something like.”

“And was it well cooked, dear?”

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

His face flushed with a genuine animation. Change of food was the only adventure that life brought to him. He rose slowly.

“Well, I must go up and change, I suppose. I’ve one or two other things to tell you, dear, later on.”

He did not ask his wife what she had been doing during the day; it was indeed doubtful whether he appreciated the existence of any life at 105 Hammerton Villas, Hammerton, during the hours when he was away from them. He himself was the central point.

Five minutes later he came downstairs in a light suit.

“Well, who’s coming out with me for a constitutional?”

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

“Right you are, father; I’m ready.”

It was the same thing every day. At eight-thirty-five Mr. Whately caught a bus at the corner of the High Street. He had never been known to miss it. On the rare occasions when he was a few seconds late the driver would wait till he saw the panting little figure come running round the corner, trying to look dignified in spite of the top hat that bobbed from one side of his head to the other. From nine o’clock till a quarter-past five Mr. Whately worked at a desk, with an hour’s interval for lunch. Every evening he went for an hour’s walk; for half an hour before dinner he read the evening paper. After dinner he would play a game of patience and smoke his pipe. Occasionally a friend would drop in for a chat; very occasionally he would go out himself. At ten o’clock sharp he went to bed. Every Saturday afternoon he attended a public performance of either cricket or football according to the season. Roland often wondered how he could stand it. What had he to look forward to? What did he think about when he sat over the fire puffing at his pipe? And his mother. How monotonous her life appeared to him. Yet she seemed always happy enough; she never grumbled. Roland could not understand it. Whatever happened, he would take jolly good care that he never ran into a groove like that. They had loved each other well enough once, he supposed, but now—oh, well, love was the privilege of youth.

Father and son walked in silence. They were fond of each other; they liked being together; Mr. Whately was very proud of his son’s achievements; but their affection was never expressed in words. After a while they began to talk of indifferent things, guessing at each other’s thoughts: a relationship of intuitions. They passed along the High Street and, turning behind the shops, walked down a long street of small red brick villas with stucco fronts.

“Don’t you think we ought to go in and see the Curtises?” Mr. Whately asked.

“I don’t know. I hadn’t meant to. I thought....”

“I think you ought to, you know, your first day; they’d be rather offended if you didn’t. April asked me when you were coming back.”

And so Roland was bound to abandon his virtuous resolution.

It was not a particularly jolly evening before Ralph arrived. Afterwards it was a good deal worse.

In the old days, when father and son had paid an evening visit, Roland had run straight up to the nursery and enjoyed himself, but now he had to sit in the drawing-room, which was a very different matter. He did not like Mrs. Curtis; he never had liked her, but she had not troubled him in the days when she had been a mere voice below the banisters. Now he had to sit in the small drawing-room, with its shut windows, and hear her voice cleave through the clammy atmosphere in languid, pathetic cadences; a sentimental voice, and under the sentiment a hard, cold cruelty. Her person was out of keeping with her voice; it should have been plump and comfortable looking; instead it was tall, thin, angular, all over points, like a hatrack in a restaurant: a terrible bedfellow. And she talked, heavens! how she talked. It was usually about her children.

“Dear Arthur, he’s getting on so well at school. Do you know what his headmaster said about him in his report?”

“Oh, but, mother, please,” Arthur would protest.

“No, dear, be quiet; I know Mr. Whately would like to hear. The headmaster said, Mr. Whately....” Then it was her daughter’s turn. “And April, too, Mr. Whately, she’s getting on so well with her drawing lessons. Mr. Hamilton was only saying to me yesterday....”

It was not surprising that Roland was less keen now on going round there. It was little fun for him after all to sit and listen while she talked, to see his father so utterly complacent, with his “Yes, Mrs. Curtis,” and his “Really, Mrs. Curtis,” and to look at poor April huddled in the window seat, so bored, so ashamed, her eyes meeting his with a look that said: “Don’t worry about her, don’t take any notice of what she says. I’m not like that.” Once or twice he tried to talk to her, but it was no use: her mother would interrupt, would bring them back into the circle of her own egotism. In her own drawing-room she would tolerate nothing independent of herself.

“Yes, Roland; what was it you were saying? The Saundersons’ dance? Of course April will be going. They’re very old friends of ours, the Saundersons. Mr. Saunderson thinks such a lot of Arthur, too. You know, Mr. Whately, I met him in the High Street the other afternoon and he said to me, ‘How’s that clever son of yours getting on, Mrs. Curtis?’ ”

“Really, Mrs. Curtis.”

“Yes, really, Mr. Whately.”

It was at this point that Ralph arrived.

His look of surprised displeasure was obvious to everyone. But knowing Ralph, they mistook it for awkwardness. He did not like company, and his shyness was apparent as he stood in the doorway in an ill-fitting suit, with trousers that bagged at the knees, and with the front part of his hair smarmed across his forehead with one hurried sweep of a damp brush, at right angles to the rest of his hair, that fell perpendicularly from the crown of his head.

“Come along, Ralph,” said April, and made room for him in the window-seat. She treated him with an amused condescension. He was so clumsy; a dear fellow, so easy to rag. “And how did your exam. go?” she asked.

“All right.”

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

“Not so bad.”

“And the geography? You were so nervous about that.”

“I didn’t do badly.”

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

“You don’t, really?”

“Yes, but I do.”

“No, you don’t,” he said impatiently. “You’d much rather hear about Roland and all the things he does at Fernhurst.”

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

“You are quite right, Ralph; as a matter of fact I should”; and she turned towards Roland, but before she could say anything, Mrs. Curtis once more assumed her monopoly of the conversation.

“Yes, Roland, you’ve told us nothing about that, and how you got your firsts. We were so proud of you, too. And you never wrote to tell us. If it hadn’t been for your father we should never have known.” And for the next half hour her voice flowed on placidly, while Ralph sat in a frenzy of self-pity and self-contempt, and Roland longed for an opportunity to kick him, and April looked out between the half-drawn curtains towards the narrow line of sky that lay darkly over the long stretch of roofs and chimney-pots, happy that Roland’s holidays had begun, regretting wistfully that childhood was finished for them, that they could no longer play their own games in the nursery, that they had become part of the ambitions of their parents.

When at last they rose to go, Ralph lingered for a moment in the doorway; he could not go home till April had forgiven him.

She stood on the top of the step, looking down the street to Roland, her heart still beating a little quickly, still disturbed by that pressure of the hand and that sudden uncomfortable meeting of the eyes when he had said “Good-by.” She did not notice Ralph till he began to speak to her.

“I am awfully sorry I was so rude to you, April. I’m rather tired. I didn’t mean to offend you. I wouldn’t have done it for worlds.”

She turned to him with a quiet smile.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said, “that’s nothing.”

And he could see that to her it was indeed nothing, that she had not thought twice about it, that nothing he said or did was of the least concern to her. He would much rather that she had been angry.

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

“Well, feeling more peaceful to-day, old friend?”

Ralph looked at Roland in impotent annoyance. As he knew of old, Roland was an impossible person to have a row with. He simply would not fight. He either agreed to everything you said or else brushed away your arguments with a good-natured “All right, old man, all right!” On this occasion, however, he felt that he must make a stand.

“You’re the limit,” he said; “the absolute limit.”

“I don’t know about that, but I think you were last night.”

“Oh, don’t joke about it. You know what I mean. I think it’s pretty rotten for a fellow like you to go about with a shop assistant, but that’s not really the thing. What’s simply beastly is your coming back to April as though nothing had happened. What would she say if she knew?”

Roland refused to acknowledge omniscience. “I don’t know,” he said.

“She wouldn’t be pleased, would she?” Ralph persisted.

“I don’t suppose so.”

“No; well then, there you are; you oughtn’t to do anything you think she mightn’t like.”

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

“But, my dear fellow, we’re not married, and we’re not engaged. Surely we can do more or less what we like.”

“But would you be pleased if you learned that she’d been carrying on with someone else?”

Roland admitted that he would not.

“Then why should you think you owe nothing to her?”

“It’s different, my dear Ralph; it’s really quite different.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is. Boys can do things that girls can’t. A flirtation means very little to a boy; it means a good deal to a girl—at least it ought to. If it doesn’t, it means that she’s had too much of it.”

“But I don’t see——” began Ralph.

“Come on, come on; don’t let’s go all over that again. We shall never agree. Let me go my way and you can go yours. We are too old friends to quarrel about a thing like this.”

Most boys would have been annoyed by Ralph’s attempt at interference, but it took a great deal to ruffle Roland’s lazy, equable good nature. He did not believe in rows. He liked to keep things running smoothly. He could never understand the people who were always wanting to stir up trouble. He did not really care enough either way. His tolerance might have been called indifference, but it possessed, at any rate, a genuine charm. The other fellow always felt what a thundering good chap Roland was—so good-tempered, such a gentleman, never harboring a grievance. People knew where they were with him; when he said a thing was over it was over.

“All right,” said Ralph grudgingly. “I don’t know that it’s quite the game——”

“Don’t worry. We’re a long way from anything serious. A good deal’s got to happen before we’re come to the age when we can’t do what we like.”

And they talked of other things.

CHAPTER IV
A KISS

APRIL sat for a long while before the looking-glass wondering whether to tie a blue or a white ribbon in her hair. She tried one and then the other and paused irresolute. It was the evening of the Saundersons’ dance, to which for weeks she had been looking forward, and she was desperately anxious to look pretty. It would be a big affair: ices and claret cup and a band, and Roland would be there. They had seen a lot of each other during the holidays—nearly every day. Often they had felt awkward in each other’s company; there had been embarrassing silences, when their eyes would meet suddenly and quickly turn away; and then there would come an unexpected interlude of calm, harmonious friendship, when they would talk openly and naturally to each other and would sit afterwards for a long while silent, softened and tranquilized by the presence of some unknown influence—moments of rare gentleness and sympathy. April could not help feeling that they were on the edge of something definite, some incident of avowal. She did not know what, but she felt that something was about to happen. She was flustered and expectant and eager to look pretty for Roland on this great evening.

She had chosen a very simple dress, a white muslin frock, that left bare her arms and throat, and was trimmed with pale blue ribbon at the neck and elbow; her stockings, too, were white, but her shoes and her sash a vivid, unexpected scarlet. She turned round slowly before the glass and smiled happily at her clear, fresh girlhood, tossing back her head, so that her hair was shaken out over her shoulders. Surely he would think her beautiful to-night. With eager fingers she tied the blue ribbon in her hair, turned again slowly before the glass, smiled, shook out her hair, and laughed happily. Yes, she would wear the blue—a subdued, quiet color, that faded naturally into the warm brown. She ran downstairs for her family’s approval, stood before her mother and turned a slow circle.

“Well, mother?”

Mrs. Curtis examined her critically.

“Of course, dear, I’m quite certain that you’ll be the prettiest girl there whatever you wear.”

“What do you mean, mother?”

“Well, April dear, of course I know you think you know best, but that white frock—it is so very simple.”

“But simple things suit me, mother.”

“I know they do, dear; you look sweet in anything; but at a big dance like this, where there’ll be so many smart people, they might think—well, I don’t know, dear, but it is very quiet, isn’t it?”

The moment before April had been happy and excited, and now she was crushed and humiliated. She sat down on the edge of a chair, gazing with pathetic pity at her brilliant shoes.

“You’ve spoilt it all,” she said.

“No, dear. I’m sure you’ll be thankful to me when you get there. Now, why don’t you run upstairs and put on that nice mauve frock of yours?”

April shook her shoulders.

“I don’t like mauve.”

“Well then, dear, there’s the green and yellow; you always look nice in that.”

It was a bright affair that her mother had seen at a sale in Brixton and bought at once because it was so cheap. It had never really suited April, whose delicate features needed a simple setting; but her mother did not like to feel that she had made a mistake, and having persuaded herself that the green and yellow was the right color, and matched her daughter’s eyes, had insisted on April’s wearing it as often as possible.

“Yes, my dear, the green and yellow. I’m sure I’m right. Now hurry up; the cab will be here in ten minutes.”

April walked upstairs slowly. She hated that green and yellow; she always had hated it. She took it down from the wardrobe and, holding the ends of the sleeves, stretched out her arms on either side so that the green and yellow dress covered her completely, and then she stood looking at it in the glass.

How blatant, how decorative it was, with its bows and ribbons and slashed sleeves. There were some girls whom it would suit—big girls with high complexions and full figures. But it wasn’t her dress; it spoilt her. She let it slip from her fingers; it fell rustling to the floor, and once again the glass reflected her in a plain white frock, and once again she tossed back her head, and once again the slow smile of satisfaction played across her lips. And as she stood there with outstretched arms, for one inspired moment of revelation, during which the beating of her heart was stilled, she saw how beautiful she would one day be to the man for whom with such a gesture she would be delivered to his love. A deep flush colored her neck and face, a flush of triumphant pride, of wakening womanhood. Then with a quick, impatient movement of her scarlet shoes she kicked the yellow dress away from her.

Why should she wear it? She dressed to please herself and not her mother. She knew best what suited her. What would happen if she disobeyed her? Would anyone ever know? She could manage to slip out when no one was looking. Annie would be sent to fetch her, but they would come back after everyone had gone to bed.

She sat on the edge of her bed and toyed with the thought of rebellion. It would be horribly exciting. It would be the naughtiest thing she had done in her life. She had never yet disobeyed deliberately anyone who had authority over her. She had lost her temper in the nursery; she had been insolent to her nurses; she had pretended not to hear when she had been called; but never this: never had she sat down and decided in cold blood to disregard authority.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes. Who’s that?”

“It’s only me—mother. Can I help you, dear?”

“No, thank you, mother; I’m all right.”

“Quite sure?”

“Quite.”

April heard her mother slowly descend the stairs, then heaved a sigh of half-proud, half-guilty relief. She was glad she had managed to get out of it without actually telling a lie. She sat still and waited, till at last she heard the crunch of a cab drawing up outside the house. She wrapped herself tightly in her coat, tiptoed to the door, opened it and listened. She could hear her mother’s voice in the passage. Quietly she stole out on to the landing, quietly ran downstairs and across the hall, fumbled for the door handle, found it, turned it, and pulled it quickly behind her. It was done; she was free. As she ran down the steps she heard a window open behind her and her mother’s voice:

“Who’s that? What is it? Oh, you, April. You might have come to see me before you went. A happy evening to you.”

April could not trust herself to speak; she ran down the steps, jumped into the cab and sank back into the corner of the cushioned seat. Her breath came quickly and unevenly, her breasts heaved and fell. She could have almost cried with excitement.

It had been worth it, though. She knew that beyond doubt a quarter of an hour later, when she walked into the ballroom and saw the look of sudden admiration that came into Roland’s eyes when he saw her for the first time across the room. He came straight over to her.

“How many dances may I have?” he asked.

“Well, there’s No. 11.”

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

“No, of course you mustn’t.”

“Yes, of course. Why, I don’t believe you have got one!”

“Yes, I have,” she said, and held it up to him. In a second it was in his hand, as indeed she had intended that it should be.

“Well, now,” said Roland, “as far as I can see you’ve got only Nos. 6, 7, 14 and 15 engaged; that leaves fourteen for me.”

“Well, you can have the four,” she laughed.

In the end she gave him six. “And if I’ve any over you shall have them,” she promised.

“Well you know there won’t be,” and their eyes met in a moment of quiet intimacy.

As soon as he had gone other partners crowded round her. In a very short while her program was filled right up, the five extras as well. She had left No. 17 vacant; it was the last waltz. She felt that she might like Roland to have it, but was not sure. She didn’t quite know why, but she felt she would leave it open.

It was a splendid dance. As the evening passed, her face flushed and her eyes brightened, and it was delightful to slip from the heat of the ballroom on to the wide balcony and feel the cool of the air on her bare arms. She danced once with Ralph, and as they sat out afterwards she could almost feel the touch of his eyes on her. Poor Ralph; he was so clumsy. How absurd it was of him to be in love with her. As if she could ever care for him. She felt no pity. She accepted his admiration as a queen accepts a subject’s loyalty; it was the right due to her beauty, to the eager flow of life that sustained her on this night of triumph.

And every dance with Roland seemed to bring her nearer to the wonderful moment to which she had so long looked forward. When she was dancing with Ralph, Roland’s eyes would follow her all round the room, smiling when they met hers. And when they danced together they seemed to share a secret with one another, a secret still unrevealed.

Through the languid ecstasy of a waltz the words that he murmured into her ear had no relation with their accepted sense. He was not repeating a piece of trivial gossip, a pun, a story he had heard at school; he was wooing her in their own way, in their own time. And afterwards as they sat on the edge of the balcony, looking out over the roofs and the lights of London, she began to tell him about her dress and the trouble that she had had with her mother. “She said I ought to wear a horrid thing with yellow and green stripes that doesn’t suit me in the least. And I wouldn’t. I stole out of the house when she wasn’t looking.”

“You look wonderful to-night,” he said.

He leaned forward and their hands touched; his little finger intertwined itself round hers. She felt his warm breath upon her face.

“Do I?” she whispered. “It’s all for you.”

In another moment he would have taken her in his arms and kissed her, and she would have responded naturally. They had reached that moment to which the course of the courtship had tended, that point when a kiss is involuntary, that point that can never come again. But just as his hands stretched out to her the band struck up; he rested his hand on hers and pressed it.

“We shall have to go,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“But the next but one.”

“No. 16.”

But the magic of that one moment had passed; they had left behind them the possibility of spontaneous action. They were no longer part of the natural rhythm of their courtship. All through the next dance he kept saying to himself: “I shall have to kiss her the next time. I shall. I know I shall. I must pull myself together.” He felt puzzled, frightened and excited, so that when the time came he was both nervous and self-conscious. The magic had gone, yet each felt that something was expected of them. Roland tried to pull himself together; to remind himself that if he didn’t kiss her now she would never forgive him; that there was nothing in it; that he had kissed Dolly a hundred times and thought nothing of it. But it was not the same thing; that was shallow and trivial; this was genuine; real emotion was at stake. He did not know what to do. As they sat out after the dance he tried to make a bet with himself, to say, “I’ll count ten and then I’ll do it.” He stretched out his hand to hers, and it lay in his limp and uninspired.

“April,” he whispered, “April.”

She turned her head from him. He leaned forward, hesitated for a moment, then kissed her awkwardly upon the neck. She did not move. He felt he must do something. He put his arm round her, trying to turn her face to his, but she pulled away from him. He tried to kiss her, and his chin scratched the soft skin of her cheek, his nose struck hers, her mouth half opened, and her teeth jarred against his lips. It was a failure, a dismal failure.

She pushed him away angrily.

“Go away! go away!” she said. “What are you doing? What do you mean by it? I hate you; go away!”

All the excitement of the evening turned into violent hatred; she was half hysterical. She had been worked up to a point, and had been let down. She was not angry with him because he had tried to kiss her, but because he had chosen the wrong moment, because he had failed to move her.

“But, April, I’m sorry, April.”

“Oh, go away; leave me alone, leave me alone.”

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

“Didn’t I tell you I wanted to be left alone? I don’t know how you dared. Do leave me.”

She walked quickly past him into the ballroom, and seeing Ralph at the far end of it went up and asked him, to that young gentleman’s exhilarated amazement, whether he was free for No. 17, and if he was whether he would like to dance it with her. She wore a brave smile through the rest of the evening and danced all her five extras.

But when she was home again, had climbed the silent stairs, and turning up the light in her bedroom saw, lying on the floor, the discarded green and yellow dress, she broke down, and flinging herself upon the bed sobbed long and bitterly. She was not angry with Roland, nor her mother, nor even with herself, but with life, with that cruel force that had filled her with such eager, boundless expectation, only in the end to fling her down, to trample on her happiness, to mock her disenchantment. Never as long as she lived would she forget the shame, the unspeakable shame, and degradation of that evening.

CHAPTER V
A POTENTIAL DIPLOMAT

ROLAND returned to school with the uncomfortable feeling that he had not made the most of his holidays. He had failed with April; he had not been on the best of terms with Ralph; and he had found the last week or so—after the Saundersons’ dance—a little tedious. He was never sorry to go back to school; on this occasion he was positively glad.

In many ways the Easter term was the best of the three; it was agreeably short; there were the house matches, the steeplechases, the sports and then, at the end of it, spring; those wonderful mornings at the end of March when one awoke to see the courts vivid with sunshine, the lindens trembling on the verge of green; when one thought of the summer and cricket and bathing and the long, cool evenings. And as Howard had now left, there was nothing to molest his enjoyment of these good things.

He decided, after careful deliberation, to keep it up with Dolly. There had been moments during the holidays when he had sworn to break with her; it would be quite easy now that Howard had left. And often during an afternoon in April’s company the idea of embracing Dolly had been repulsive to him. But he had been piqued by April’s behavior at the dance, and his conduct was not ordered by a carefully-thought-out code of morals. He responded to the atmosphere of the moment; his emotion, while the moment that inspired it lasted, was sincere.

And so every Sunday afternoon he used to bicycle out towards Yeovil and meet Dolly on the edge of a little wood. They would wheel their machines inside and sit together in the shelter of the hedge. They did not talk much; there was not much for them to discuss. But she would take off her hat and lean her head against his shoulder and let him kiss her as much as he wanted. She was not responsive, but then Roland hardly expected it. His small experience of the one-sided romances of school life had led him to believe that love was a thing of male desire and gracious, womanly compliance. He never thought that anyone would want to kiss him. He would look at his reflection in the glass and marvel at the inelegance of his features—an ordinary face with ordinary eyes, ordinary nose, ordinary mouth. Of his hair certainly he was proud; it was a triumph. But he doubted whether Dolly appreciated the care with which he had trained it to lie back from his forehead in one immaculate wave. She had, indeed, asked him to give up brilliantine.

“It’s so hard and smarmy,” she complained; “I can’t run my fingers through it.”

The one good point about him was certainly lost on Dolly. He wondered whether April liked it. April and Dolly! It was hard to think of the two together. What would April say if she were to hear about Dolly? It was the theme Ralph was always driving at him like a nail, with heavy, ponderous blows. An interesting point. What would April say? He considered the question, not as a possible criticism of his own conduct, but as the material for an intriguing, dramatic situation. It would be hard to make her see the difference. “I’m a girl and she’s a girl and you want to kiss us both.” That was how she would look at it, probably—so illogical. One might as well say that water was the same thing and had the same effect as champagne. Ridiculous! But it would be hard to make April see it.

And there was a difference, big difference; he felt it before a fortnight of the new term had passed. In spite of the kisses he was never moved by Dolly’s presence as he was by April’s. His blood was calm—calmer, far calmer, than it had been last term. He never felt now that excitement, that dryness of the throat that used to assail him in morning chapel towards the end of the Litany. Something had passed, and it was not solely April, though, no doubt, she had formed a standard in his mind and had her share in this disenchantment. It was more than that. In a subtle way, although he had hardly exchanged a dozen words with her in his life, he missed Betty. He had enjoyed more than he had realized at the time those moments of meeting and parting, when the four of them had stood together, awkward, embarrassed, waiting for someone to suggest a separation. It had always been Betty who had done it, with a toss of her head: “Come on, Dolly, time to be getting on”; or else: “Now, then, Dolly, isn’t it time you were taking your Roland away with you?” And what a provocative, infinitely suggestive charm that slow smile of hers had held for him. The thrill of it had borne him triumphantly over the preliminaries of courtship. He missed it now, and often he found himself talking of her to Dolly.

“Did she really like Howard?” he asked her once.

“Yes, I think so; in fact, I know she did. Though I couldn’t see what she saw in him myself. I suppose there was something about him. She misses him quite a lot, so she says.”

This statement Roland considered an excellent cue for an exchange of gallantries.

“But wouldn’t you miss me if I went?”

Dolly, however, was greatly interested in her own subject.

“Yes,” she went on, “she seems really worried. Only the other day she said to me: ‘Dolly, I can’t get on without that boy. There’s nothing to look forward to of a Sunday now, and I get so tired of my work.’ And when I said to her: ‘But, my dear Betty, there’s hundreds more fish in the sea. What about young Rogers at the post office?’ she answers: ‘Oh, him! my boy’s spoilt me for all that. I can’t bear the sight of young Rogers any more.’ Funny, isn’t it?”

Roland agreed with her. To him it was amazing.

“Well,” Dolly went on, “I saw quite clearly that there was nothing for it but that she must get hold of another young chap like your friend. And I asked her if there was anyone else up at the school she fancied, and she said, yes, there was; a boy she’s seen you talking to once or twice; a young, fair-haired fellow with a blue and yellow hat ribbon. That’s the best I can do. Is that any help to you? Would you know him?”

A blue and yellow hat ribbon limited the selection to members of the School XI., and there was only one old color who answered to that description—Brewster in Carus Evans’.

“Oh, yes, I know him.”

“Well, now, don’t you think you could arrange it? Do, for my sake.”

“But I don’t know him well enough. I don’t see how I could.”