"He's not a liar," said Scaife.
"It's true," said John, in a strangled voice.
"You have wished that he might be sacked?"
"Yes."
John met Desmond's indignant eyes with an expression which the other was too impetuous, too inexperienced to interpret. Into that look of passionate reproach he flung all that must be left unsaid, all that Scaife could read as easily as if it were scored in letters of flame. Because, in his modesty and humility, he had ever reckoned that Scaife would prevail against himself—because, with unerring instinct, he had apprehended, as few boys could apprehend, the issues involved, he had desired, fervently desired, that Scaife should be swept from Cæsar's path. But this he could not plead as an excuse to his friend; and Scaife had known that, and had used his knowledge with fiendish success. John lowered his eyes and walked from the room.
When he met Desmond again, nothing was said on either side. John told himself that he would speak, if Desmond spoke first. But evidently Desmond had determined already the nature of their future relations. They no longer shared No. 7, John being in the Upper Sixth with a room to himself, but they still "found" together. To separate would mean a public scandal from which each shrank in horror. No; let them meet at meals as before till the end of the term. Indeed, so little change was made in their previous intercourse, that John began to hope that Cæsar would walk with him as usual upon the following Sunday. And if he did—if he did, John felt that he would speak. On the top of the tower, looking towards the Spire, alone with his friend, exalted above the thorns and brambles of the wilderness, words would come to him.
But on the following Sunday Desmond walked with Scaife.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Of these, the Park, now a boarding-house, was a characteristic specimen. It belonged to Lord Northwick, Lord of the Manor of Harrow.
[35] In the thirties Harrow boys played "Jack o' Lantern," or nocturnal Hare and Hounds. They used to attend Kingsbury Races and Pinner Fair. Lord Alexander Russell, when he was a boy at the Grove, kept a pack of beagles at the foot of the Hill.