[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."
Mrs Curtis was not a little surprised. For a good sixteen years Mr Whately had refused to consider the possibility of any education for Roland other than Fernhurst and Brasenose.
"But you are not thinking of taking him away from Fernhurst and not sending him to Brasenose?" she said.
"Oh, no, Mrs Curtis, but I have been thinking that if we could do things all over again I am not at all sure but that's not the way I should have arranged his education."
That was the first step.