“Because you hit below the belt. Because you appealed to sentiment last night. Because you knocked me down with that, and kick me this morning. It isn’t fair.”
Edith looked at him; her face was really troubled.
“Ah! tear them up, Hughie,” she said; “throw them away.”
He sat down on the end of her bed.
“I can’t,” he said. “You gave me them. I will go to-day. Oh, gladly too, lovingly; but it was rather a shock. I want to go now, as I see you want it, and have made it your birthday present to me. Thanks, thanks most awfully!”
CHAPTER XVIII
CANON ALINGTON was sitting opposite his wife, telling her and Mrs. Owen about the outside edge. Ambrose and Perpetua had been reading their books while their elders dined, but at the mention of outside edge they both looked up, keeping their thin little forefingers in the place. Ambrose knew about the outside edge too, and from Davos he had repeatedly written to Perpetua about it.
“Form, form,” said Dick; “anyone can do these things, but the difficulty is to do them rightly. I myself have much to learn yet.”
The sentiment was humble and true, but the tone was bitter. Canon Alington had not got over the recollection of a morning at Davos when he attempted to gain admittance to the English Skating Club. Since that fatal day there had been severe frosts in Wiltshire, and he had started the Mannington Skating Club, and had been an assiduous instructor. Aspirants who wished to skate in a particular roped-off piece of ice had to pass a test. Ambrose had passed it; but there was no need for himself to pass it, since he was the judge who decided whether others could do so. He was rather a strict judge; he insisted on “form.”
Ambrose chipped in—