University examinations are not things to be postponed with polite little notes like inconvenient balls or picnics. And, given the early days of December, and a young man who steadfastly refused to acknowledge this fact, what use was it even to trouble to scan the lists?
Of course Philip was plucked.
In October he had brought down his father’s wrath upon him by failing to get through in a class examination; and any one who had had experience of the Captain’s would have thought that would have been quite enough to make him take a good place at the end of his second year.
But, as I said, his name was conspicuous by its absence.
“Oh, Philip!” Nell said, an accent of reproach [99] ]on the first syllable; “and even that stupid Burton boy is through.”
“Oh, Pip!” said Meg. “What will father say?”
It was the day the lists were out at the university, and Philip had just communicated the agreeable intelligence to his sisters in the midst of his third pipe after dinner.
And the strange part was, he did not seem to care twopence—the orthodox measure of indifference.
He lolled back on the lounge, and made fantastic figures with the smoke from his pipe; he did not even seem to hear what the girls were saying.
And when he came out of his father’s study, after a mauvais quart d’heure of unusual elasticity, there was not a trace of repentance on his face, nothing but obstinacy in his eyes, and lips all pursed up for a careless whistle when the distance from the room should be respectable enough.