“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.
PART II
THE RIVAL FORCES
CHAPTER VIII
A FORTUNATE MEETING
MR. WHATELY’S one idea on his return to Hammerton was to hide the fact that Roland’s sudden leaving was the result of a scandal. He wished the decision in no way to seem unpremeditated. Two days later, therefore, he went round to the Curtises’ and prepared the way by a discussion of the value of university training.
“Really, you know, Mrs. Curtis,” he said, “I very much doubt whether Oxford is as useful as we sometimes think it is. What will Roland be able to do afterwards? If I know Roland he will do precious little work. He is not very clever; I doubt if he will get into the Civil Service, and what else is there open to him? Nothing, perhaps, except schoolmastering, and he would not be much use at that. I am not at all certain that it is not wiser, on the whole, to take a boy away at about seventeen or eighteen, send him abroad for a couple of months and then put him into business.”