“The ugliest,” he said. “And the fattest. And the beastliest. I say, though, it was rather a sell for me.”
“Complete suck,” said Bags.
There are exactly as many ways of falling in love as there are different natures in the world, and since every one, boy or man or girl or woman, falls in love off the same carpet, so to speak, on which he transacts the other affairs of life, it followed that David’s first excursion into the enchanted country was made with enthusiasm and gaiety and innocence, and with that forgetfulness of himself that characterised his other ways and works. That he was in love at all, any grown-up man, who was so unfortunate as to forget what it was like to be a boy, would probably have denied, calling his feelings calf-love at the most, but no boy, unless he was a shrivelled old man, could doubt for a moment the genuineness of David’s emotion. It seriously threatened for the next few weeks to dethrone the dominant passion inspired by cricket, and, since that absolutely refused to vacate the supreme throne, love squeezed itself in and sat beside it, so that if David lay awake on Sunday pondering over fresh wiles in the matter of his googlies, on Monday the googlies would not enter his head at all, except as shadows, and he would devote the whole of his insomnia (which perhaps lasted half an hour) to the contemplation of the adorable Violet. At such times he would give vent to a sound between a sigh and a groan, and Jevons from the next bed would ask if he had tummy-ache. Then David would say savagely, “No, you little ass, go to sleep”; and add in a minute or two, “Thanks for asking, Jev.”
At this high level his adoration remained for a whole month. Occasionally, as during the two days of the Old Boys’ match, he would be more absorbed in cricket while Violet looked on from the throne of his heart, even as she looked on from the balcony of the pavilion; but on the day succeeding the glorious discomfiture of the Old Boys, cricket, as an active principle in his mind, lapsed into a state of quiescence, while Violet became volcanic again. He did not want anything from her (though the thought of kissing her, a wild flight of impossible fancy, sent his heart into his mouth); he only wanted that she should be she and he an adorer: he could have given no further account of it than that. All his other friends, Frank and his own sister, and Bags and Plugs, were on a different plane. He loved Margery, he loved Frank, he esteemed and relied on Bags, but none gave him any tremor, any sense of excitement. But for Violet, his boyish heart was full of a sweet tumult and confusion, whenever the enchantress came within eyeshot.
Meantime the strange young man who had roused David’s suspicions on Sunday afternoon continued staying with the Grays, but his presence was accounted for, since, to David’s great relief, he proved to be a cousin. He proved also, which was satisfactory, to be a man who played cricket occasionally for his county, and thus had a claim to respect, and took part in a match against the masters, playing for them. On that occasion he proceeded to hit David’s bowling to all parts of the compass with the utmost ease and enjoyment, a feat that raised him in the bowler’s estimation. Eventually David got him out with a ball about which Mr. Leonard Gray knew absolutely nothing, but he had been treated with wonderful contempt first. And as Gray retired he nodded in a friendly manner.
“Glad you didn’t send that ball down sooner, Blaize,” he said.
Then, with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, the end came. Bags brought the fateful news, while David was ecstatically employed on a model flying-machine which Frank had given him.
“Did you ever see anything so ripping!” he shouted. “Frank sent it me this morning. It flew the whole length of hall just now. Wait till I wind it up again.”
David picked up the beloved machine and began winding it.