“Pray enter!” he called, with an effective half-turn on the stool.
The door opened. A tall upstanding figure was silhouetted there on the threshold.
“Hullo, Gav!”
“I don’t think I—— Why, David! David! Of all the surprises!” And Gaveston rose, resplendent with welcome.
“I heard you were coming up this term, and I——”
“But, David, I’d no idea you were here!”
“It’s my second year at Wallace, Gav.”
“And I never heard!”
This was splendid! Gaveston stepped back to look at his friend with whole-hearted pleasure.
David Paunceford was a figure of the true Hellenic mould, athletic in every limb and fibre, flaxen of hair, blue of eye, and aquiline of nose, sane to the finger-tips, and the heir to at least one of England’s oldest peerages. Add to this that he was an intense admirer of Gaveston, and who could better approach the ideal of a friend?