Bradley Headstone looked at his finger again, took it out of the buttonhole and looked at it closer, bit the side of it and looked at it again.
‘You see, Hexam, you will be one of us. In good time you are sure to pass a creditable examination and become one of us. Then the question is—’
The boy waited so long for the question, while the schoolmaster looked at a new side of his finger, and bit it, and looked at it again, that at length the boy repeated:
‘The question is, sir—?’
‘Whether you had not better leave well alone.’
‘Is it well to leave my sister alone, Mr Headstone?’
‘I do not say so, because I do not know. I put it to you. I ask you to think of it. I want you to consider. You know how well you are doing here.’
‘After all, she got me here,’ said the boy, with a struggle.
‘Perceiving the necessity of it,’ acquiesced the schoolmaster, ‘and making up her mind fully to the separation. Yes.’
The boy, with a return of that former reluctance or struggle or whatever it was, seemed to debate with himself. At length he said, raising his eyes to the master’s face: