He stood up and fumbled in his coat. Peter always remembered him, his dark slim body against the sky, his hair tumbled about his forehead, the grace and ease with which his body was balanced, the trick that he had of swaying a little from the hips. He felt in his pocket.
“I say—I've got something for you. I bought it down in the town the other day and I made them put your name on it.” He produced it, wrapped in tissue paper, out of his pocket, and Peter took it without a word. It was a silver match-box with “Peter Westcott from his friend Cardillac,” and the month and the year printed on it.
“Thanks most awfully,” Peter said gruffly. “Jolly decent of you. Good-bye old man.”
They shook hands and avoided each other's eyes, and Cardillac had a sudden desire to fling the Grand Tour and the rest of it to the dogs and to come back for another year to Dawson's.
“Well, I must get back, got to be in library at four,” he said.
“I'm going to stop here a bit,” said Peter.
He watched Cards walk slowly down the hill and then he flung himself on his face and pursued with a vacant eye the efforts of an ant to climb a swaying blade of grass ... he was there for a long time.
III
And so he entered into his third year at Dawson's with a dogged determination to get through with it as well as possible and not to miss Cards more than he could help. He did, as an actual fact, miss Cards terribly. There were so many places, so many things that were connected with him, but he found, as a kind of reward, that Bobby Galleon was more of a friend than before. Now that Cards had departed Galleon came a little out of his shell. He anticipated, obviously with very considerable enjoyment, that year when he would have Peter all to himself. Bobby Galleon's virtue was, at any rate, that one was not conscious of him, and during the time of Peter's popularity he was useful without being in the very least evident. When that year was over and he had seen the last shining twinkle of Cards' charms and fascinations he looked at Peter a little wistfully, “Peter, old man, next year will be topping....” and Peter, the pleasant warmth of popularity about him, felt that there was a great deal to be said for Galleon after all.