"You like to kick small boys," said Cæsar, in a very loud voice. "I'm small, half your size, why don't you kick me?"
The Lubber could have crushed the speaker by mere weight; but he hesitated, and the harder he stared at Desmond the less he fancied the job of kicking him. Quality confronted quantity.
"Kick me," said Desmond, "if—if you dare, you big, hulking coward and cad!"
"Come on, Lubber, get into line!" shouted some boy.
Sprott turned slowly, glancing over his vast, fat shoulder to guard against further assault. Then he took his place in the line, and passed slowly out of the Yard and out of these pages. He never persecuted John again.[22]
Not yet, however, was the sun to shine in John's firmament. As the days lengthened, as June touched all hearts with her magic fingers, insensibly relaxing the tissues and warming the senses, John became more and more miserably aware that, in the fight between Scaife and himself for the possession of Desmond, the odds were stupendously against him. Truly the Demon had the subtlety of the serpent, for he used the failings which he was unable to hide as cords wherewith to bind his friend more closely to him. When the facts, for instance, of what had taken place in Lovell's room came to Desmond's ears, he denied fiercely the possibility of Scaife, his pal, making a "beast" of himself. The laughter which greeted his passionate protest sent him hot-foot to Scaife himself.
"They say," panted Cæsar, "that last winter you were dead drunk in Lovell's room. I told the beasts they lied."
Scaife's handsome face softened. Was he touched by Cæsar's loyalty? Who can tell? Always he subordinated emotion to intelligence: head commanded heart.
"Perhaps they did," he answered steadily; "and perhaps they didn't. I deny nothing; I admit nothing. But"—his fine eyes, so dark and piercing, flamed—"Cæsar, if I was dead drunk at your feet now, would you turn away from me, would you chuck me?"
Desmond winced. Scaife pursued his advantage.