"One moment?" asked Susanne coolly. "You really take the words out of my mouth. Our action will be decided after discussion. If the police want information, as seems certain, we shall volunteer it. I am not quite sure that we shall not at once report the circumstances. In any case, we do not intend to lie. As for you, Rawlings and Trendall—you must do as you like. Your movements and your actions have no interest for me and these other fellows."
"You mean, then, that if you're asked who were in that other car you won't say?" demanded Rawlings eagerly, breathlessly in fact.
"Certainly, that is, if the request comes from the school authorities. If from the police it is a different matter. Now you know. Lie as much as you care to yourself. This firm don't go in for dirty behaviour of that sort."
The great and placid Susanne carefully focussed his monocle upon the figure of the prefect, regarded him, from the sole of his dusty boots to the crown of his somewhat damaged bowler, with something akin to scorn, and then set out for the school with his comrades. They left the trio behind them in earnest conversation, a conversation which, before it was ended, became somewhat heated. Nor did it bode much good to Clive and his comrades. It may be said, indeed, that all Rawlings' vindictiveness was centred upon the young fellow who lived so close to him at home. But in the case of Trendall we are bound to confess that the condition of his mind was essentially wavering. To commence with, at heart he was a better and a more generous-minded fellow than Rawlings. And then, try as he might, he could not forget his indebtedness to Susanne. Rawlings had chided him for it. He had argued against that feeling as unnatural.
"Feel as if you ought to be grateful!" he had scoffed now on many an occasion, for he was ever fearful of losing the alliance. Rawlings had, indeed, felt the coldness of his fellows for many a day after that episode on the ice. Fellows who had been quite content to know him before, to be even jovial with him, though never actually friendly, were now always busy when he happened to accost them, and hurried off. Or they turned cold looks upon him, which sent him off with his tail between his legs and his lips muttering. Trendall might do the same. Susanne and his friends had helped to save his life. Trendall had even thanked them, though lamely it must be admitted.
"Call that saving your life! Rot!" Rawlings had told him. "What followed? For a week and more the chaps were never tired of hooting you. They told you that you had acted like a muff. That you had nearly drowned the whole party. And now you speak of gratitude, and to fellows such as they are."
It was always the memory of the uncomfortable and indisputable fact that Ranleighans had jeered at him that turned all Trendall's better intentions and feelings to gall and wormwood. Hyper-sensitive where his own dignity was concerned, and having for a long while had perforce to put up with a great deal of chaff, he had found, up to that affair of the ice, that friendship with Rawlings improved his position. There are snobs in every school, we suppose. Rawlings was decidedly one. Trendall was, perhaps, another. In any case, alliance with Rawlings had brought him comfort and affluence, for his friend was blessed with even more money than was the case with Susanne. And chaff had ceased, for Rawlings was free with his hands and feet. But that ice episode had set fellows jeering. Trendall forgot a natural gratitude to Susanne and his friends in the bitterness of the ridicule poured on him, and this, fanned by Rawlings, made him almost as great an enemy as was that immaculate but detestable young fellow.
"So we sticks together, eh?" asked Higgins, as the trio were about to separate. "If them young sneaks says as you was in that car, I says you wasn't. If I'm axed who was there, why, I don't know."
A ponderous wink and an ugly leer accompanied this statement.
"But I knows who was along with me, oh, yes, I knows all about that. I was going to Guildford shopping, yes, and these here youngsters sees me and asks for a ride. I gives it to 'em. Yes. That's right. And their names is Feofé, Masters, Darrell and two Seymours. You're clear, Mr. Rawlings. Thank ye, sir. Sovereigns is useful every time. You say as there'll be another by the end of the week?"