“—and carry the key in my pocket.”
“Ah. But, Mr. Elliot, I am a cousin of Widdrington’s. He wrote to me about you. I am so glad. Will you, first of all, come to supper next Sunday?”
“I am afraid,” put in Herbert, “that we poor housemasters must deny ourselves festivities in term time.”
“But mayn’t he come once, just once?”
“May, my dear Jackson! My brother-in-law is not a baby. He decides for himself.”
Rickie naturally refused. As soon as they were out of hearing, Herbert said, “This is a little unfortunate. Who is Mr. Widdrington?”
“I knew him at Cambridge.”
“Let me explain how we stand,” he continued, after a pause.
“Jackson is the worst of the reactionaries here, while I—why should I conceal it?—have thrown in my lot with the party of progress. You will see how we suffer from him at the masters’ meetings. He has no talent for organization, and yet he is always inflicting his ideas on others. It was like his impertinence to dictate to you what authors you should read, and meanwhile the sixth-form room like a bear-garden, and a school prefect being put into the waste-paper basket. My good Rickie, there’s nothing to smile at. How is the school to go on with a man like that? It would be a case of ‘quick march,’ if it was not for his brilliant intellect. That’s why I say it’s a little unfortunate. You will have very little in common, you and he.”
Rickie did not answer. He was very fond of Widdrington, who was a quaint, sensitive person. And he could not help being attracted by Mr. Jackson, whose welcome contrasted pleasantly with the official breeziness of his other colleagues. He wondered, too, whether it is so very reactionary to contemplate the antique.