Chapter VII: A Sorry Business

April did not see very much of Roland during the holidays, and was not, on the whole, sorry. Now that the hysterical excitement over his return had passed, she judged it better to let their friendship lapse. She did not want any repetition of that disastrous evening, and thought that it would be easier to resume their friendship on its old basis after the long interval of the summer term. Roland was still a little piqued by what he considered her absurd behaviour, and had resolved to let the first step come from her.

This estrangement was a disappointment to his people.

"Have you noticed, my dear, that Roland's hardly been round to the Curtises' at all these holidays?" Mr Whately said to his wife one evening. "I hope there has not been a row or anything. I rather wish you'd try and find out."

And so next day Mrs Whately made a guarded remark to her son about April's appearance: "What a big girl she's getting. And she's prettier every day. If you're not careful you'll have all the boys in the place running after her and cutting you out."

Roland answered in an off-hand manner, "They can for all I care, mother."

"Oh, but, Roland, you shouldn't say that; I thought you were getting on so well together last holidays. We were even saying----"

But Roland never allowed himself to be forced into a confidence.

"Oh, please, mother, don't. There was nothing in it; really, there wasn't."

"You haven't had a row, have you, Roland?"

"Of course not, mother. What should we have a row about?"

"I don't know, dear. I only thought----"

"Well, you needn't worry about us, mother; we're all right."

Roland was by no means pleased at what seemed to him a distinct case of interference. It arrived, too, at a most inopportune moment, for he had been just then wondering whether he ought not to forget about his high-minded resolves and try to make it up with April. His mother's inquiries, however, decided him. He was not going to have others arranging that sort of thing for him. "And for all I know," he said to himself, "Mrs Curtis may be at the back of this. I shan't go round there again these holidays." And this was the more unfortunate, because if the intimacy between Roland and April had been resumed, it is more than likely that Roland, at the beginning of the summer term, would have decided to give up Dolly altogether. Both he and Brewster were a little tired of it; the first interest had passed, and they had actually discussed the wisdom of dropping the whole business.

"After all," said Brewster, "it can't go on for ever. It'll have to stop some time, and next term we shall both be fairly high in the school, house prefects and all that, and we shall have to be pretty careful what we do."

Roland was inclined to agree with him, but his curiosity was still awake.

"It's not so easy to break a thing like this. Let's wait till the end of the term. The summer holidays are a long time, and by the time we come back they'll very likely have picked up someone else."

"All right," said Brewster, "I don't mind. And it does add an interest to things."

And so the affair went on smoothly and comfortably, a pleasant interlude among the many good gifts of a summer term--cricket and swimming and the long, lazy evenings. Nothing, indeed, occurred to ruffle the complete happiness of Roland's life, till one Monday morning during break Brewster came running across to the School house studies with the disastrous news that his house master had found out all about it. It had happened thus:

On the previous Saturday Roland had sent up a note in break altering the time of an appointment. It was the morning of a school match and Brewster received the note on his way down to the field. He was a little late, and as soon as he had read the note he shoved it into his pocket and thought no more about it. During the afternoon he slipped, trying to bring off a one-handed catch in the slips, and tore the knee of his trousers. The game ended late and he had only just time to change and take his trousers round to the matron to be mended before lock-up. In the right-hand pocket the matron discovered Roland's note, and, judging its contents singular, placed it before Mr Carus Evans.

As Roland walked back with Brewster from the tuck-shop a small boy ran up to tell him that Mr Carus Evans would like to see him directly after lunch.

Roland was quite calm as he walked up the hill three hours later. One is only frightened when one is uncertain of one's fate. When a big row is on, in which one may possibly be implicated, one endures agonies, wondering whether or not one will be found out. But when it is settled, when one is found out, what is there to do? One must let things take their course; nothing can alter it. There is no need for fret or fever. Roland was able to consider his position with detached interest.

He had been a fool to send that note. Notes always got lost or dropped and the wrong people picked them up. How many fellows had not got themselves bunked that way, notes and confirmation? They were the two great menaces, the two hidden rocks. Probably confirmation was the more dangerous. On the whole, more fellows had got the sack through confirmation, but notes were not much better. What an ass he had been. He would never send a note again, never; he swore it to himself, and then reflected a little dismally that he might very likely never have the opportunity.

Still, that was rather a gloomy view to take. And he stood more chance with Carus Evans than he would have done with any other master. Carus Evans had always hated him, and because he hated him would be desperately anxious to treat him fairly. As a result he would be sure to underpunish him. It is always safer to have a big row with a master who dislikes you than with one who is your friend. And from this reflection Roland drew what comfort he might.

Mr Carus Evans sat writing at his desk when Roland came in. He looked up and then went on with his letter. It was an attempt to make Roland feel uncomfortable and to place him at the start at a disadvantage. It was a characteristic action, for Carus Evans was a weak man. His house was probably the slackest in the school. It had no one in the XV., Brewster was its sole representative in the XI. and it did not possess one school prefect. This should not have been, for Carus Evans was a bachelor and all his energies were available. He had no second interest to attract him, but he was weak when he should have been strong; he chose the wrong prefects and placed too much confidence in them. He was not a natural leader.

For a good two minutes he went on writing, then put down his pen.

"Ah, yes, yes, Whately. Sit down, will you? Now then, I've been talking to one of the boys in my house and it seems that you and he have been going out together and meeting some girls in the town. Is that so?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the suggestion came from you, I gather?"

"Yes, sir."

"This is a very serious thing, Whately. I suppose you realise that?"

"I suppose so, sir."

"Of course it is, and especially so for a boy in your position. Now, I don't know what attitude the headmaster will adopt, but of this I am quite certain. A great deal will depend on whether you tell me the truth. I shall know if you tell me a lie. You've got to tell me the whole story. Now, how did this thing start?"

"On the first night of the Christmas term, sir."

"How?"

"I met them at a dance in the pageant grounds."

"The pageant grounds are out of bounds. You ought to know that."

"It was the first night, sir."

"Don't quibble with me. They're out of bounds. Well, what happened next?"

"I danced with her, sir."

"Were you alone?"

"No, sir."

"Who was with you?"

"I can't tell you, sir."

"If you don't tell me----"

"He's left now, sir. It wouldn't be fair."

They looked each other in the face and in that moment Carus Evans realised that, in spite of their positions, Roland was the stronger.

"Oh, well, never mind that; we can leave it till later on. And I suppose you made an appointment?"

"No, sir."

"What?"

"You asked me if I made an appointment, sir. I answered I didn't."

Roland was not going to give him the least assistance. Indeed, in the joy of being able to play once again the old game of baiting masters, that had delighted him so much when he had been in the middle school and that he had to abandon so reluctantly when he attained the dignity of the Fifths and Sixths, he had almost forgotten that he was in a singularly difficult situation. He would make "old Carus" ask him a question for every answer that he gave. And he saw that for the moment Carus had lost his length.

"Well, then, let me see. Yes, well--er--well, where did you meet her next?"

"In a lane beyond Cold Harbour, sir."

"Did you go there alone?"

"No, sir."

"You were with this other fellow?"

"Yes, sir."

"And what did you do?"

"Do, sir?"

"Yes, do. Didn't you hear me?"

"Yes, sir, but, Do? I don't quite understand you. What exactly do you mean by the word 'do'?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean, Whately. You flirted, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir. I suppose that's what I did do. I flirted."

"I mean you held her hand?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you kissed her?"

"Yes, sir."

"Disgusting! Simply disgusting! Is this place a heathen brothel or a Christian school?" Carus' face was red, and he drove his fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. "You go out on a Sunday afternoon and kiss a shop-girl. What a hobby for a boy in the XV. and Sixth!" And he began to stamp backwards and forwards up and down the room.

This fine indignation did not, however, impress Roland in the least. Carus appeared to him to be less disgusted than interested--pruriently interested--and that he was angry with himself rather than with Roland, because he knew instinctively that he was not feeling as a master should feel when confronted with such a scandal. It was a forced emotion that was inspiring the fierce flow of words.

"Do you know what this sort of thing leads to?" he was saying. "But, of course, you do. I could trust you to know anything like that. Your whole life may be ruined by it."

"But I didn't do anything wrong."

"Perhaps you didn't, not this time, though I've only your word for it; but you would have, sooner or later, under different conditions. There's only one end to that sort of thing. And even if you were all right yourself, how did you know that Brewster was going to be? That's the beastly part of it. That's what sickens me with you. Your own life is your own to do what you like with, but you've no right to contaminate others. You encourage this young fellow to go about with a girl four years older than himself, about whom you know nothing. How could you tell what might be happening to him? He may not have your self-control. He'd never have started this game but for you, and now that he's once begun he may be unable to break himself of it. You may have ruined his whole life, mayn't you?"

Roland considered the question.

"I suppose so, but I didn't look at it that way."

"Of course, you didn't. But it's the results that count. That's what you've got to keep in mind; actions are judged by their results. And now, what do you imagine is going to happen to you? I suppose you know that if I go across and report you to the headmaster that it'll mean the next train back to London?"

"Yes, sir."

"And if I did, you'd have no cause for complaint. It would be what you'd deserved, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a pause. They looked at each other. Carus Evans hoped that he had frightened Roland, but he had not. Roland knew that Carus did not intend to get him expelled. He would not have talked like that if he had. He was trying to make Roland feel that he was conferring a favour on him in allowing him to stop on.

"There's no reason why I should feel kindly disposed towards you," Carus said. "We've never got on well together. You've worked badly in my form. I've never regarded you as a credit to the school. When you were a small boy you were rowdy and bumptious, and now that you have reached a position of authority you have become superior and conceited. There's no reason why I, personally, should wish to see you remain a member of the school. As regards my own house, I cannot yet judge what harm you may have done me. You've started the poison here. Brewster will have told his friends. One bad apple will corrupt a cask. I don't know what trouble you may have laid up for me."

"No, sir."

"But all the same, I know what it means to expel a boy. He's a marked man for life. I'm going to give you another chance."

"Thank you, sir."

"But you've got to make this thing good first. You've got to go to the headmaster yourself and tell him all about it--now, at once. Do you see?"

"Yes, sir."

It was going to be an awkward business, and Roland made no attempt to conceal it from himself. It was just on the half-hour as he walked across the courts. Afternoon school was beginning. Groups had collected round the classrooms, waiting for the master to let them in. Johnson waved to him from a study window and told him to hurry up and help them with the con.

"Don't wait for me," Roland called back. "I've got one or two things to do. I shall be a little late."

"Slacker," Johnson laughed.

It was funny to see the machine revolving so smoothly, with himself, to all outward appearance, a complacently efficient cog in it. He supposed that a criminal must feel like this when he watched people hurry past him in the streets; all of them so intent upon their own affairs and himself seemingly one with them, but actually so much apart.

He knocked at the headmaster's door.

"Come in."

The headmaster was surprised to see Roland at such an hour.

"Yes, Whately?" he said, and then appeared to remember something, and began to fumble among some papers on his desk. "One moment, Whately; I knew there was something I wanted to speak to you about. Ah, yes, here it is. Your essay on Milton. Will you just come over here a minute? I wanted to have a few words with you about it. Sit down, won't you? Now, let me see, where is it? Ah, yes, here it is: now you say, 'Milton was a Puritan in spite of himself. Satan is the hero of the poem.' Now I want to be quite certain what you mean by that. I'm not going to say that you are wrong. But I want you to be quite certain in your own mind as to what you mean yourself."

And Roland began to explain how Milton had let himself be carried away by his theme, that his nature was so impregnated by the sense of defeat that defeat seemed to him a nobler thing than victory. Satan had become the focus for his emotions on the overthrow of the Commonwealth.

"Yes, yes, I see that, but surely, Whately, the Commonwealth was the Puritan party. If Milton was so distressed by the return of the Royalists, how do you square this view with your statement, 'Milton was a Puritan in spite of himself'? Surely if his puritanism was only imposed, he would have welcomed the return of the drama and a more highly coloured life."

Roland made a gallant effort to explain, but all the time he kept saying to himself, "I came here for a confessional, and yet here I am sitting down in the Chief's best arm-chair, enjoying a friendly chat. I must stop it somehow." But it was excessively difficult. He began to lose the thread of his argument and contradicted himself; and the Chief was so patient, listening to him so attentively, waiting till he had finished.

"But, my dear Whately," the Chief said, "you've just said that _Comus_ is a proof of his love of colour and display, and yet you say in the same breath...."

Would it never cease? And how on earth was he at the end going to introduce the subject of his miserable amours? He had never anticipated anything like this. But at last it was finished.

"You see what you've done, Whately? You've picked up a phrase somewhere or other about the paganism of Milton and the nobility of Satan and you have not taken the trouble to think it out. You've just accepted it. I don't say that your statement could not be justified. But it's you who should be able to justify it, not I. You should never make any statement in an essay that you can't substantiate with facts. It's a good essay, though, quite good." And he returned to his papers. He had forgotten altogether that Roland had come unasked to see him.

It was one of the worst moments of Roland's life. He stood silent in the middle of the room while the Chief continued his letter, thinking the interview was at an end.

"Sir," he said at last.

The headmaster looked up quickly and said a little impatiently, for he was a busy man and resented interruption, "Well, Whately? Yes; what is it?"

"I came to see you, sir."

"Oh, yes, of course you did. I forgot. Well, what is it?"

"Sir, I've come to tell you that Mr Carus Evans told me to come and report myself to you and say that--well, sir--that I've been going out for walks with a girl in the town."

"What!"

"Yes, sir, a girl in the town, and that I'd asked a boy in his house to come with me, sir."

The Chief rose from his chair and walked across to the mantelpiece. There was a long pause.

"But I don't quite understand, Whately. You've been going out with some girl in the town?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you've encouraged some boy in Mr Carus Evans' house to accompany you?"

"Yes, sir."

"And he, I suppose, has been going for walks with a girl as well?"

"Yes, sir."

There was another long pause, during which Roland realised that he had chosen the worst possible moment for his confession. Whatever decision the Chief might arrive at would be influenced, not only by his inevitable disappointment at the failure of a boy in whom he had trusted, but by its violent contrast with the friendly discussion over the essay and the natural annoyance of a busy man who has been interrupted in an important piece of work to discuss an unpleasant situation that has arisen unexpectedly. When the Chief at last began to speak there was an impatience in his voice that would have been absent if Roland had tackled him after dinner.

"I don't know," he said. "I am tempted sometimes to give up faith in you fellows altogether. I never know where I am with any of you. I feel as though I were sitting upon a volcano. Everything seems quiet and satisfactory and then suddenly the volcano breaks out and I find that the boys in whom I have placed, or am thinking of placing, responsibility have deceived me. Do you realise the hypocrisy of your behaviour during the last year? You have been meeting Mr Carus Evans and myself on friendly, straightforward terms, with an open look on your face, and all the time, behind our backs, you've been philandering with girls in the town. I haven't asked you for any details and I am not going to; that doesn't enter into the question at all. You've been false and doublefaced. You've been acting a lie for a year. It's the sort of thing that makes me sick of the whole lot of you. You can go."

Roland walked back to the studies, perplexed and miserable. The word "deceit" had cut hard into him. He loathed crookedness and he had always considered himself dead straight. It was a boast of his that he had never told a lie, at least not to a boy; masters were different. Of course they were, and it was absurd to pretend they weren't. Everyone did things that they wouldn't care to tell the Chief. There was a barrier between. The relationship was not open like friendship. He saw the Chief's point of view, but he did not consider it a sound one. He disliked these fine gradations of conduct, this talk of acting a lie: things were either black or white. He remembered how the Chief had once come round the upper dormitories and had endeavoured to persuade him that it was acting a lie to get into bed without cleaning his teeth. He had never understood why. An unclean act, perhaps, but acting a lie! oh, no, it wouldn't do. It was an unfair method of tackling the problem. It was hitting a man in the back, this appeal to a better nature. Life should be played like cricket, according to rules. You could either play for safety and score slowly, or you could run risks and hit across straight half-volleys. If one missed it one was out and that was the end of it. One didn't talk about acting a lie to the bowler because one played at the ball as though it were outside the leg stump. Why couldn't the Chief play the game like an umpire? Roland knew that he had done a thing which, in the eyes of authority, was wrong. He admitted that. He had known it was wrong all the time. He had been found out; he was prepared for punishment. That was the process of life. One took risks and paid the penalty. The issue was to Roland childishly simple, and he could not see why all these good people should complicate it so unnecessarily with their talk of hypocrisy and deceit.

That evening the headmaster wrote to Roland's father:

DEAR Mr WHATELY,--I write to inform you of a matter that will
cause you, I fear, a good deal of pain. I have discovered that for
the last year Roland has been in the habit of going out for walks
on Sunday afternoons with a young girl in the town, and that he
has encouraged another and younger boy to accompany him. These
walks resulted, I am sure, in nothing beyond a little harmless
flirtation, and I do not regard the actual issue as important. I
do consider, however, and I think that in this you will agree with
me, that Roland's conduct in the matter is most reprehensible. It
has involved a calculated and prolonged deception of you, his
parent, and of us, his schoolmasters, and he has proved himself,
I fear, unworthy of the responsibility of prefectship that I had
hoped to place in him next term. If he were a younger boy the
obvious course would be a sound thrashing. But Roland is too old
for that. Perhaps he is too old to be at school at all. The leaving
age of nineteen is arbitrary. Boys develop at such different ages;
and though I should not myself have thought so before this affair
arose, it may very well be that Roland has already passed beyond
the age at which it is wise and, indeed, safe to keep him any
longer at a school. For all we know, this trouble may prove to have
been a blessing in disguise, and will have protected him from more
serious difficulties. At any rate, I do not feel that I should be
doing my duty by you or by the other parents who place the welfare
of their boys in my hands if I were to keep Roland here after the
summer. There is, of course, in this not the least suggestion of
expulsion. Roland will leave at the end of the term with many of
his contemporaries in the ordinary course of events. And he will
become, if he wishes, as I hope he will wish, a member of the old
Fernhurstian Society. Perhaps you may yourself decide to come down
and have a talk with Roland. If so, perhaps we might discuss his
future together. I do not myself see why this should prejudice in
any way his going up to the University in a year's time. Of course
he could not go up now as he has not yet passed responsions.

I very much hope that you will come down and that we shall
be able to discuss the whole matter from every point of view.
Sincerely yours,
J. F. HARRISON.

This letter arrived at Hammerton by the evening post. Mr Whately had that morning received a letter from Roland, written before the row, with an account of a house game in which he had made 59 runs and taken 3 wickets. Mr Whately was most excited.

"He's really doing remarkably well," he said, after dinner. "He says that he's pretty certain for his second XI. colours, and I can't think why they don't give him a trial for the first. I know that Fernhurst have a pretty strong side this year, but they ought to try all the men they've got."

"He ought to get in next year at any rate," said his wife.

"Next year! Of course there should be no doubt about that at all. But I should like to see him get in this. It will make a big difference to his last term if he knows he's safe for his place. It's always a little worrying having to play for one's colours, and I should like him to have a really good last term. He's deserved it; he's worked hard; he's been a real success at Fernhurst."

His soliloquy was at this point interrupted by the double knock of the postman. Mr Whately jumped up at once.

"The Fernhurst postmark, my dear," he said. "I wonder what this can be about. The headmaster's writing!"

He tore open the envelope eagerly and began to read.

"Well, dear?" said his wife.

He said nothing, but handed the letter across to her. She read it through and then sat forward in her chair, her hands lying on her knees.

"Poor darling," she said. "So that's why he saw so little of April last holidays."

"Yes, I suppose that's the reason."

"Do you think he was in love with her?"

"With April?"

"No, of course not, dear. With this girl at Fernhurst?"

"I don't know. How could I tell?"

And again they sat in silence. It was such a long while since they had been called upon to face a serious situation. For many years now they had lived upon the agreeable surface of an ordered life. They were unprepared for this disquieting intrusion.

"And what's going to happen now?" she said at last. "I suppose you'll have to go down and see him."

"Yes, I think so. Yes, certainly. I ought to go down to-morrow."

"And what will you say to him?"

"I don't know. What is it the headmaster says?"

She handed him the letter and he fumbled with it. "Here it is. 'I do not see myself why this should prejudice in any way his going up to the University.' That's what the headmaster says. But I don't really see how we could manage it. After all, what would happen? He would have to go to a crammer's and everyone would ask questions. We have always said how good the Fernhurst education is, and now they'll begin to wonder why we've changed our minds. If we take Roland away and send him to a crammer's they would be sure to think something was up. You know what people are. It would never do."

"No, I suppose not. But it seems rather hard on Roland if he's got to give up Oxford."

"Well, it will be his own fault, won't it?"

"We haven't heard the whole story yet."

"I know; but what's the good of discussing it. He knew he was doing something he ought not to be doing. He can't expect not to have to pay for it."

And there was another pause.

"He was doing so well, too," she said.

"He would have been a prefect after the summer. He would have been captain of his house. We should have been so proud of him."

"And it's all over now."

They did not discuss the actual trouble. He knew that on the next day he would have to go over the whole thing with Roland, and he wanted to be able to think it out in quiet. They were practical people, who had spent the last fifteen years discussing the practical affairs of ways and means. They had come nearest to each other when they had sat before their account-books in the evening, balancing one column with another, and at the end of it looking each other in the face, agreeing that they would have to "cut down this expense," and that they could "save a little there." The love of the senses had died out quickly between them, but its place had been taken by a deep affection, by the steady accumulation of small incidents of loyalty and unselfishness, of difficulties faced and fought together. They had never ventured upon first principles. They had fixed their attention upon the immediate necessities of the moment.

And now, although Roland's moral welfare was a deep responsibility to them, they spoke only of his career and of how they must shape it to fit the new requirements. Mr Whately thought that he might be able to find a post for him in the bank. But his wife was very much against it.

"Oh, no, dear, that would be terrible. Roland could never stand it; he's such an open-air person. I can't bear to think of him cooped up at a desk all his days."

"That's what my life's been."

"I know; but, Roland. Surely we can find something better for him than that."

"I'll try. I don't know. Things like the Civil Service are impossible for him now, and the Army's no use, and I've got no influence in the City."

"But you must try, really, dear. It's awful to think of him committed to a bank for the rest of his life just when he was doing so well."

"All right. I'll do my best."

A few minutes later he said that he was tired and would go to bed. At the door he paused, walked back into the room and stood behind his wife. He wanted to say something to show that he appreciated her sympathy, that he was glad she was beside him in this disappointment, this hour of trouble. But he did not know what to say. He stretched out a hand timidly and touched her hair. She turned and looked up at him, and without a word said put her arms slowly about his neck, drew his hand down to her and kissed him. For a full minute he was pressed against her. "Dear," he murmured, and though he mounted the stairs sadly, he felt strengthened by that embrace of mutual disappointment.

He set off very early next morning, for he would have to go down to the bank and make arrangements for his absence. He had hoped that Roland would have written to them, but the post brought only a circular from a turf accountant.

"Have you decided what you are going to say to him?" his wife asked.

"Not yet. I shall think it out in the train. I shall be able to say the right thing when the time comes."

"You won't be hard to him. I expect he's very miserable."

It was a bad day for Mr Whately. During the long train journey through fields and villages, vivid in the bright June sunlight, he wondered in what spirit he should receive his son. Roland would be no doubt waiting for him at the station. What would they say to each other? How would they begin? He would have lunch, of course, at the Eversham Hotel, and then, he supposed, he would have to see the headmaster. That would be very difficult. He always felt shy in the headmaster's presence. The headmaster was such an aristocrat; he was stamped with the hall-mark of Eton and Balliol, while he himself was the manager of a bank in London. He was always aware of his social inferiority in that book-lined study, with the five austere reproductions of Greek sculpture. The interview would be very difficult. But the headmaster would at least do most of the talking; whereas with Roland.... Mr Whately shifted uneasily in his corner seat. What on earth was he going to say? Something, surely, about the moral significance of the act. Roland must realise that he was guilty of really immoral conduct, and yet how was he to be made to realise it? What arguments must be produced? Wherein lay the harm of calf love? And looking back over his own life Mr Whately could not see that there was any particular vice attached to it. It was absurd and preposterous, but it was very pleasant. He remembered how he had once fancied himself in love with his grandmother's housemaid. He used to get up early in the morning so that he could sit with her while she laid the grate, and he had knelt down beside her and joined his breath with hers in a fierce attempt to kindle the timid flame. He had never kissed her, but she had let him hold her hand, and the summer holidays had passed in delicious reveries. He remembered also how, a little later, he had fallen desperately in love with the girl at the tobacconist's, and he could still recall the breathless excitement of that morning when he had come into the shop and found it empty. For a second she had listened at the door leading to the private part of the house and had then leant forward over the counter: "Quick," she had whispered.

Mr Whately smiled at the recollection and then remembered suddenly for what cause he was travelling down to Fernhurst. "I must say something to him. What shall I say?" And for want of any better argument he began to adapt a speech that he had heard spoken a few weeks earlier in a melodrama at the Aldwich. The hero, a soldier, had come home from the war to find his betrothed in the arms of another, and she had protested that it was him alone she loved, and that she was playing with the other; but the returned warrior had delivered himself of an oration on the eternal sanctity of love. "Love cannot be divided like a worm and continue to exist. It is not a game." There was something in that argument, and Mr Whately decided to tell Roland that love came only once in a man's life, and that he must reserve himself for that one occasion. "If you make love to every girl you meet, you will spoil yourself for the real love affair. It will be the removal of a shovelful of gravel from a large pile. One shovelful appears to make no difference, but in the end the pile of gravel disappears." That is what he would say to Roland. And because the idea seemed suitable, he did not pause to consider whether or not it was founded upon truth. He lay back in his corner seat and began to arrange his ideas according to that line of persuasion.

But all this fine flow of wit and logic was dispelled when the train drew up at Fernhurst station and Mr Whately descended from the carriage to find Roland waiting for him on the platform.

"Hullo! father," he said, and the two of them walked in silence out of the station, and turned into the Eversham Rooms.

"I've booked a table at the hotel," said Roland.

"Good."

"I expect you're feeling a bit hungry after your journey, aren't you, father?"

"Yes, I am a bit."

"Not a bad day for travelling, though?"

"No, it was very jolly. The country was beautiful all the way down. It's such a relief to be able to get out of London for a bit."

"I expect it must be."

"It's quite a treat to be able to come here"; and so nervous was he that he failed to appreciate the irony of his last statement.

By this time they had reached the hotel. Roland walked with a cheerful confidence into the entrance, nodded to the porter, hung his straw hat upon the rack, and suggested a wash.

Mr Whately looked at himself in the glass as he dried his hands. It was a withered face that looked back at him; the face of a bank clerk who had risen with some industry and much privation to a position of authority; a face that was lined and marked and undistinguished; the face of a man who had never asserted himself. Mr Whately turned from his own reflection and looked at his son, so strong, and fresh and eager; unmarked as yet by trouble and adversity. Who was he, a scrubby, middle-aged little man, emptied of energy and faith, with his life behind him--who was he to impose his will on anyone?

"Finished, father?"

He followed his son into the dining-room and picked up the menu; but he did not know what to choose, and handed the card across to Roland. Roland ordered the meal; the waiter rubbed his hands, and father and son sat opposite each other, oppressed by a situation that was new to them. Roland waited for his father to begin. During the last thirty-six hours he had been interviewed by three different masters, all of whom had, in their way, tried to impress upon him the enormity of his offence. He was by now a little tired of the subject. He wanted to know what punishment had been fixed for him. He had heard enough of the moral aspect of the case. "These people treat me as though I were a fool," he had said to Brewster. "To hear the way they talked one would imagine that I had never thought about the damnable business at all. They seem to expect me to fall down, like St Paul before Damascus, and exclaim: 'Now, all is clear to me!' But, damn it all, I knew what I was doing. I'd thought it all out. I'm not going to do the conversion stunt just because I've been found out." He expected his father to go over the old ground--influence, position, responsibility. He prepared himself to listen. But as his father did not begin, and as the soup did not arrive, Roland felt it was incumbent upon him to say something.

"A great game that against Yorkshire?" he said.

"What! Which game?"

"Don't you remember, about a fortnight ago, the Middlesex and Yorkshire match? Middlesex had over two hundred to get and only three hours to get them in. They're a fine side this year."

And within two minutes they were discussing cricket as they had discussed it so often before. At first they talked to cover their embarrassment, but soon they had become really interested in the subject.

"And what chance do you think you have of getting in the XI.? Surely they ought to give you a trial soon."

"Oh, I don't know, father; I'm not much class, and there are several old colours. I ought to get my seconds all right, and next season...."

He stopped, realising suddenly that he did not as yet know whether there would be any next season for him, and quickly changed the conversation, telling his father of a splendid rag that the Lower Fourth had organised for the last Saturday of the term.

Sooner or later the all-important question had to be tackled, but by the time lunch had finished, son and father had established their old intimacy of quiet conversation, and they were ready to face and, if need be, to dismiss the violent intrusion of the trouble. They walked up and down the hotel grounds, Mr Whately wondering at what exact point he should dab in his carefully constructed argument. There was a pause, into which his voice broke suddenly:

"You know, Roland, about this business...."

"Yes, father."

"Well, I mean, going out with a girl in the town. Do you think it's...." He paused. After all, he did not know what to say.

"I know, father. I know." And looking at each other they realised that it would be impossible for them to discuss it. Their relationship was at stake. It had no technique to deal with the situation. And Roland asked, as his mother had asked, "What's going to happen, father?"

For answer, Mr Whately put his hand into his pocket, took out the headmaster's letter and gave it to Roland. Roland read it through and then handed it back. "Not a bad fellow, the Chief," he said, and they walked up and down the path in silence.

"It's a disappointment," said Roland.

"For all of us."

"I suppose so."

And after another pause: "What's going to happen to me at the end of the term?"

"That's what I've got to decide. I suggested a bank, but your mother was very much against it."

"Oh, not the bank, father!"

"Well, I'll do my best for you, but it'll be difficult. Oxford's out of the question. You can see that, can't you? I should have to send you to a crammer, and everyone would talk. It would be sure to leak out. And we don't want anything like that to happen, because they would be sure to think it was something worse than it really was. I'm afraid Oxford's got to go. Your mother agreed with me about that."

"I'm sure you're right, father."

"But I don't know what else there is, Roland. I shall have to ask the headmaster."

But the headmaster was not very helpful. He was kind and sympathetic. He spoke of the moral significance of the situation and the eventual service that this trouble might prove to have been. He wished Roland the very best of luck. He didn't agree with Mr Whately about the impossibility of Oxford, but he appreciated Mr Whately's point of view. After all, Mr Whately knew his own son better than he did. Was there anything more Mr Whately would wish to ask him? He would be always very glad to give Mr Whately any advice or help that lay within him. He hoped Mr Whately would have a pleasant journey back to town.

"Dorset's at its best in June," he said, as he escorted Mr Whately to the door.

There was an hour to put in before the departure of the London train, and Roland and his father walked down to the cricket field. They sat on the grass in the shade of the trees that cluster round the pavilion, and watched the lazy progress of the various games that were scattered round the large high-walled ground. It was a pretty sight--the green fields, the white flannels, the mild sunshine of early summer. It was bitter to Mr Whately that he would never again see Fernhurst. For that was what Roland's trouble meant to him. And the reflection saddened his last hour with his son.

When Roland had left him at the station he walked up and down the platform in the grip of a deep melancholy. On such an afternoon, five years ago, he had seen Fernhurst for the first time. He had brought Roland down to try for a scholarship and they had stayed for three days together at the Eversham Hotel. Fernhurst had been full of promise for them then. He had not been to a public school himself. When he was a boy the public school system had indeed hardly begun to impose its autocracy on the lower middle classes, and he had always felt himself at a disadvantage because he had been educated at Burstock Grammar School. He had been desperately anxious for Roland to make a success of Fernhurst. He had looked forward to the day when his son would be an important figure in the school, and when he himself would become important as Whately's father. How proud he would feel when he would walk down to the field in the company of a double first. He would come down to "commem" and give a luncheon party at the Eversham Hotel, and the masters would come and speak to him and congratulate him on his son's performance: "A wonderful game of his last week against Tonwich." And during the last eighteen months it had indeed seemed that these dreams were to be realised. Roland had his colours at football, he was in the Sixth, a certainty for his seconds at cricket: after the summer he would be a prefect and captain of games in the house. And now it was all over. As far as he was concerned, Fernhurst was finished. His life would be empty now without the letter every Monday morning telling of Roland's place in form, of his scores during the week, and all the latest news of a vivid communal life. That was over. And as Mr Whately mounted the train, closed the door and sat back against the carriage, he felt as though he were undergoing an operation; a part of his being was being wrenched from him.

Roland felt none of this despondency. After saying good-bye to his father he walked gaily up the Eversham Road. The brown stone of the Abbey tower was turning to gold in the late sunlight, a cool wind was blowing, the sky was blue. What did this trouble matter to him? Had he not strength and faith and time in plenty to repair it? He had wearied of school, he reminded himself. He had felt caged this last year; he had wanted freedom; he had outgrown the narrow discipline of the field and classroom. Next term he would be a man and not a schoolboy. He flung back his shoulders as though he were ridding them of a burden.

There was still three-quarters of an hour to put in before lock-up, and he walked up past the big school towards the hill. He thought he would like to tell Brewster what had happened. He found him in his study, and with him an old boy, Gerald Marston, who had been playing against the school that afternoon.

"Hullo!" he said. "So here's the criminal. I've just been hearing all about you. Come along and sit down."

Roland was flattered at Marston's interest in his escapade. He had hardly known him at all when he had been at Fernhurst. Marston had been in another house, was two years his senior, and, in addition, a double first. Probably it was the first time they had even spoken to each other.

"Oh, yes, we've been having an exciting time," laughed Roland.

"And what's going to be the end of it?"

"Well, as far as I can gather, the school will meet without me next September."

"The sack?"

"Well, hardly that; the embroidered bag."

They talked and laughed. Marston was very jolly; he gave himself no airs, and Roland could hardly realise that three years ago he had been frightened of him, that when Marston had passed him in the cloister he had lowered his voice, and as often as not had stopped speaking till he had gone by.

"And what's going to happen to you now?" asked Marston.

"That's just what I don't know. My pater talked about my going into a bank."

"But you'd hate that, wouldn't you?"

"I'm not too keen on it."

"Lord, no! I should think not. And there's no real future in it. You ought to go into the City. There's excitement there, and big business. You don't want to waste your life like that."

It happens sometimes that we meet a person whom we seem to have known all our life, and by the time the clock began to strike the quarter, Roland felt that he and Marston were old friends.

"A good fellow that," said Marston, after he had gone, "and a bit of a sport too, by all accounts. I must try and see more of him."

And in his study Roland had picked up a calendar and was counting the days that lay between him and Freedom.