“I don’t want to fight, Haviland,” was the sullen answer.
“Very well, then. But don’t let me hear of any of you bullying Cetchy any more. He can tell me now, because I’m no longer a prefect; and any fellow who does will get the very best hammering he ever had in his life. That’s all.”
His former colleagues spared no pains to let him see that they still regarded him as one of themselves. Among other things they pressed him to use the prefects’ room as formerly, but this he refused to do. If he had been walking with any of them he would stop short at the door, and no amount of persuasion could prevail on him to enter.
“You needn’t be so beastly proud, Haviland,” Laughton had said, half annoyed by these persistent refusals. “Why, man, Nick’s bound to reinstate you before long. The notice, mind, says ‘suspended’ only.”
At which Haviland had shaken his head and laughed strangely.
The confinement to grounds told horribly upon his spirits. Three miserable cricket fields—as a matter of fact they were remarkably open and spacious—to be the sole outlet of his energies during all these weeks! He hated every stick and stone of them, every twig and leaf. He saw others coming and going at will, but he himself was a prisoner. Not even to the swimming pool might he go.
In sheer desperation he had followed Laughton’s advice, and gone in for cricket, but had proved so half-hearted over the game, then bad-tempered and almost quarrelsome, that no one was sorry when he declared his intention of giving it up. More and more he became given over to brooding—seeking a quiet corner apart, and looking out on to the open country from which he was debarred. While thus occupied one day, a hand dropped on his shoulder. Turning angrily—thinking some other fellow was playing the fool, and trying to startle him—he confronted Mr Sefton.
“What were you thinking about, Haviland?” said the latter in his quick, sharp, quizzical way.
“Oh, I don’t know, sir. Nothing very particular, I suppose,” forcing a laugh, for he was not going to whine to Sefton.
The latter looked at him with straight, penetrating gaze.