"But it's out of bounds."
"Ee, bless me, my man, don't you know that to me all rules are but gossamer threads that I break at my will? I'm off to buy sausages. I haven't had anything worth eating since the holidays."
And so, arm in arm, we marched briskly down the Beaten Track. The Beaten Track, I must tell you, was a route into the town which Penny, Doe, and I regarded as our private highway. We would have esteemed it disloyalty to an inanimate friend to approach the town by any other channel. It led through the residential district of Kensingtowe, past a fashionable church, and down a hill. Dear old Beaten Track! How often have I mouched over it, alone and dreamy, adjusting my steps to the cracks between its pavement-flags! How often have I sauntered along it, arm in arm with one of my friends, talking those great plans which have come to nothing!
We always became confidential on the Beaten Track; and to-day I suddenly pressed Penny's arm and opened the subject that, though I would not have admitted it, was the most pressing at the moment.
"I say, why does Doe avoid us now?"
"The Gray Doe," sneered Penny. "Oh, he—She's in love, I suppose. With Radley."
"Don't drivel," I commanded; "why does he hang about with that awful Freedham?"
"When you're my age, Rupert," began Penny, in kind and accommodating explanation, "you'll know that there are such things as degenerates and decadents. Freedham is one. And very soon Doe will be another."
"Well, hang it," I said, "if you think that, how can you joke about it, and leave him to go his way?"
"Oh, the young fellow must learn wisdom. And he's not in any danger of being copped. I'm the only one that suspects; and I guessed because I'm exceptionally brilliant. Besides, if he wants to go to the devil for a bit, you can't take his arm and go with him."