Mrs. Curtis again refused to be convinced.
“You wouldn’t,” she said.
April was of the same opinion. She knew perfectly well that Roland, of his own free will, would never have agreed to such a plan. There must be trouble of some sort or other, she said to herself, and Roland instantly became more interesting in her eyes. She wondered what he had done. Her knowledge of school life was based mainly upon the stories of Talbot Baines Reid, and she began to picture some adventure in which he had taken the blame upon his own shoulders. A friend of his had contracted liabilities at the Eversham Arms and Roland had become involved; or perhaps someone had endeavored to steal the papers of a Scholarship examination and Roland had been falsely accused. She could not imagine that Roland had himself done anything dishonorable, and she could not be expected to know the usual cause for which boys are suddenly removed from their school. Ralph Richmond was the only person who was likely to know the true story, and to him she went.
Now, there is in the Latin Grammar a morality contained in an example of a conditional sentence which runs in the following words: “Even though they are silent they say enough.” In spite of Ralph’s desperate efforts to assume ignorance it was quite obvious to April that he knew all about it, also that it was something that Roland would not want her to know. She was puzzled and distressed. If there had been no embarrassment between them during the holidays she would probably have written to Roland and asked him about it, but under the conditions she felt that this was impossible.
“I shall have to wait till he returns,” she said. “Perhaps he will tell me of his own accord.”
But when Roland came home he showed not the slightest inclination to tell her anything. If he were acting a part he was acting it extraordinarily well. He told her how glad he was that he was leaving Fernhurst. “One outgrows school,” he said. “It is all right for a bit. It is great fun when you are a fag and when you are half-way up; but it is not worth it when you have got responsibilities. And as I went there at thirteen—a year earlier than most people—nearly all my friends will have left. I should have been very lonely next term. I think I am well out of it.”
April reminded him of his eagerness to go to Oxford. That objection, too, he managed to brush aside.
“Oxford,” he said; “that is nothing but school over again. It is masters and work and regulations. I am very glad it is over.”
For a while she was almost tempted to believe he was telling her the truth, but as August passed she noticed that Roland seemed less satisfied with his prospects. He spoke with diminishing enthusiasm of the freedom of an office. Indeed, whenever she introduced the subject he changed it quickly.
“I expect father will find me something decent soon,” he would say, and began to talk of cricket or of some rag that he remembered.