"I know. I'm glad I was saved that. I don't know why I feel it as I do, though I've tried to find out. I can't really blame Fred. Why should I blame him for wanting me? And he didn't even bother me. He went to father."
"And I expect he wishes he hadn't now. I can tell you why you feel it, without looking up any words in a dictionary. He's so far beneath you in every way that it's like a degradation to have him even thinking about you in that way. As for bringing it on—I don't think you could have helped it—a pushing common bounder like that, who wouldn't understand your just being friendly with him. It would have had to come, sooner or later."
"Perhaps you're right, though I don't feel it quite like that. I think I've got myself to blame somewhere. Still, I'm well out of it, and I dare say I shall get over the horrid feeling in time. I hope I shan't have to see him again—not for a long time."
"Of course you'll get over it; and you needn't see him any more, ever—in any way that will matter to you. I wish I could say the same for myself; but the odd thing is that he's got himself in with the governor—in business. He says he's good at it, and a nice enough fellow, who did well in the war. I'm all for treating fellows well who did well in the war, but you do get a bit fed up with some of them, whom you'd never have known but for the old war. I don't suppose Mr. Comfrey would have dared to think about you, before the war. Oh, we've got a lot up against the Kaiser. Let's forget about him, Pam, and forget all about the other bothers, and have a jolly Christmas."
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
AND THE THIRD
On the afternoon of Christmas Day Norman went out to take the air. There was a cold drizzle of rain, and nobody was inclined to accompany him. He was not sorry to be alone, for he had a good deal to think about, and his thoughts flowed freely as he strode along, buttoned up in his rain coat and rather enjoying the bleak inclemency of the weather, so unlike that of the traditional Christmas. But the Christmas atmosphere was abundantly alive at the Hall, and he carried it with him as he tramped through the mud.
He came back as dusk was falling through the wood at the lower end of the park, and some association of place brought sharply back to his memory the fight he had had with Fred Comfrey down here, years before. He could see Fred and Hugo sitting on the log as he went towards them across the park, and there came to him a return of the feelings with which he had approached them. He came out of the wood at the place where the fallen log had been. It had gone now, but there was Fred, his old-time enemy, standing under a tree, with his eyes fixed upon the Hall, the windows of which were showing their welcoming lights that no longer welcomed him.