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.