Robin shivered.
“Like going out of a warm-lit house into the night,” said he, “when you’ve had a jolly evening. Is that it? But why do we both feel like that? Even if there is a war—is it the thought of that which upsets us?”
“Yes: it’s not knowing in the slightest what it’s all going to be like. What’s certain is that things can’t be the same.”
There was a moment’s silence, and again a distant flash, not quite so remote, leaped in the west.
“Lightning,” said Jim, looking up.
Robin pulled himself together, and looked down.
“Bats,” he said. “Come to bed. Or shall we go back to Badders?”
“No, bed I think. To-morrow’s Monday: I wonder what’ll happen on Monday.”
There was a small gathering in Mr. Waters’ rooms that night, and as the two boys passed his lit windows on the ground floor of the Fellows’ Buildings they could see the tall, spare form of Mr. Jackson, evidently in the rostrum, for his head was judicially tilted, as when he lectured. He had come down from his house after dinner, under the stress of the prevalent unrest, to see if there was any fresh news. For himself, he felt a sturdy optimism that, war or no war, Cambridge would go on much as usual.
“Upon my word, I don’t see what there is to be disturbed about,” he said, “and if I had been you, Waters, I think I should have gone to Baireuth, just the same.”