For a little while those who knew that Roe had found a friend in Coles wondered what part he had played in Roe’s downfall, and indeed curiosity as to which other boys from somewhere behind the scenes had really been responsible for his own son’s defection troubled the Head himself; but the awe in which he held his father effectually prevented Roe from turning King’s evidence. He went quietly, with abashed mien, intensely annoyed with his father for ever having fetched him from Wilton to become a puppet at Harley. Afterwards Hard Roe seemed almost to forget the incident, for he asked no questions of anybody in the school. It may well be that in certain respects his sense of pride was satisfied by the certainty that his iron justice would live in the memory of the boys he would leave at Harley long after he had gone, and that for this reason he preferred to leave things entirely as they were. By digging deeper into the mystery and dragging to light whatever other miscreants there were in Seymour’s he would seem to be finding excuses for his son by sweeping away a handful of other boys as bad as he on the grounds that they had led him astray, when his one expulsion would have all the effect that was necessary in curing the evil by making an example of the chief wrong-doer.
He had a distaste for excuses of any kind. His son should have been strong enough to stand alone. Instead he had sinned, and he could not pardon his son for drinking whisky on the grounds that another boy had given it to him.
Coles lived in considerable anxiety during those last long days, because he was unaware of the Head’s real attitude and quite uncertain whether, before he left, Roe had given him away.
He had Bobbie before him and extracted an oath of secrecy.
“If you breathe so much as a word of this,” he had said, “I’ll tell your secret too, and all the school shall know that a low professional pug has sent his brat to a school for the sons of gentlemen. Not only that. If you let me down I’ll see that your life here is a never-ending nightmare. Are you going to promise?”
“I don’t see any need to promise,” said Bobbie, “but I’ll do so if you like.”
Coles shook his fist angrily.
“I shall hold you to it,” he declared. “One word, and you’ll wish you’d been born dumb.”
Bobbie turned and left him. After all, there was nobody he would need to tell—now.
The last few days of term passed slowly. The most sensational thing that could have come about had happened. That which followed was only aftermath. To the last day they did not know how completely they had won the long fight, nor guess that when Hard Roe stood in the great hall and spoke to them of their Christmas holidays in a quiet and unemotional voice he was in reality bidding them good-bye.