“Only this much, that he has been speaking to me about it. He says that you told him—I want to know why you told him.”
“It is my business,” Perrin said, “as housemaster here to find out anything that may be harming my house. I consider your late hours, your disregard of your work, prejudicial to the school's progress,—um, yes.”
The impulse that had brought Traill to Perrin's room had not altogether been one of anger. He was much too excited by the other event of the afternoon to have any very angry feelings against anyone, and indeed it had been rather a desire for peace, for clearing things up and being well with the world, that had brought him there. He was a little ashamed of the way that he had allowed, during these last weeks, his anger against Perrin to grow, and he seemed to be losing some of his good-humor and equability.
So now he put all the self-command that he possessed into play, and said quietly, “I'm sorry, Perrin, if you feel that I have been neglecting my duty. I don't think that, after all, one night's outing during the term can do anyone very great harm. But I only spoke to you about it because I have been feeling during these last weeks that we have not been very good friends. It seems a pity when we are cooped up together here so closely that we should not get on as well as possible; it makes everything uncomfortable. And, in so far as I am to blame at all, I am very sorry.”
The little red and yellow china man on the mantelpiece, Perrin said, had been watching the conversation with great curiosity, and Perrin felt that he was a little disappointed now when matters promised to finish comfortably. Perrin himself was only too ready for peace. These quarrels always brought on headaches, and, in his heart, he longed eagerly, hungrily, for a friend. He already was beginning to feel again that he liked young Traill very much.
He sat back in his chair and meant to be pleasant once more; but it was his eternal misfortune, his curse from the deriding gods, that he had ever at his hack the memory of all these jesting years that had already passed him by: the memory of the men, the boys, the women, who had laughed at him: the memory of the ways that he had suffered, of the taunting jeers that had been flung at him, of the jests that so many of his fellow-beings had, in his time, played upon him.
And so now he felt that at all costs he must regain his dignity, he must show this young fellow his place and then be nice to him afterwards; and really, somewhere in the hack of his mind, he saw his old mother with her white lace cap sitting stiffly in her chair, and Traill on his knees, kissing her hand.
“Well, Traill, I 'm sure I 'm glad you feel like that—um, yes. One must, you know, maintain discipline. You are young; when you are older you will see that there is something in what I say—um. We know, you see; schoolmastering is a thing that takes some learning; yes, well, I'm sure I'm very glad.”
But Traill was white again; his good determinations, his pleasant tempers were flung, suddenly screaming, helter-skelter to the winds. The patronage of it, the stupid, blundering fool with his “When you are older,” and the rest.
“All right,” he said hotly; “keep that advice for others. I don't know that I was so wrong, after all. What business of yours was it to go sneaking to the Head like that? There are certain things that a gentleman doesn't do.”