“No, it is not football. It is merely a detail—quite a detail. But Mr. Perrin informs me that you came in at one o'clock this morning through the window. I confess that I was surprised.”
“That is quite true,” said Traill, in a low voice. “I went—”
“Ah! no! please!” Mr. Thompson lifted a large white hand. “No details are necessary. The facts are sufficient. I need not, I think, say any more. You must see for yourself.... Only, I think you will agree with me that it should not occur again.”
“I am sorry—” Traill said.
“Ah, please! No more; it shall not be mentioned again. Only work and play together are impossible. We have long vacations that give us all we ask. To pass for a moment to another matter.” Moy-Thompson put his hand on some papers. “Here are the scholarship questions that you have set—geography and history. I think they are scarcely what we require. If you would not mind resetting them and bringing them to me to-morrow. Yes. Thank you.... Good morning.” Traill rose, took the papers in his hand, and left the room. He knew, surely, certainly, as though Birkland himself had told him, that this was to be the beginning of persecution. The Reverend Moy-Thompson had got his knife into him, and he had Perrin to thank for it.
IV.
The interview that had lasted barely five minutes hung heavily over him throughout the midday dinner. He always hated the meal: the great joints of mutton, waiting to be carved, in shapeless, thick hunks, the incessant noise throughout the meal, the clatter of plates and noise and voices, the dreary monotony and repetition of it—Perrin's face seen at the end of a long white table with the two rows of boys in between.
But to-day as he sat there he felt that he could kill Perrin if he had the opportunity. What business was it of his? He had at any rate lost no time in running to tell Moy-Thompson about it. The thought of the savage joy that must have filled Perrin's breast whilst he told his news, made Traill grind his teeth. Well! he would be even with him!
The moment the meal was over, and grace had been chanted in a loud, discordant yell, Traill left the table and, without a word to anyone, rushed down to the sea.
A tremendous wind was blowing. There was a certain part of the cliff that jutted out into the water, and this was surrounded now, on three sides, by a furious, heaving flood.