“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 forever. 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 tuckshop 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.