Martin now saw the folly of his actions. The matter had gone too far, he had lost grip, and a tremendous rag was imminent.
"Shut up," he roared with all the authority he could command.
And just then Rayner came in to take his spell of prep. There was an immediate silence. Martin left the room in an agony of despair. What the deuce would Rayner think?
As he sat in his study pretending to read Tacitus the prospect of failure and misery became cruelly imminent. He couldn't make out why the workroom people would shut up for Rayner. Rayner wasn't noted for his severity and didn't make half as much use of the Iron Heel as some of his predecessors in Berney's or contemporaries in other houses. Martin was faced with the eternal paradox of government, that those who can govern do not need to punish, while those who punish do not thereby govern. He had always suspected the common talk about personalities and strong men: but now he began to wonder whether there wasn't something in it after all. Anyhow it seemed that by one action of hesitation he had lost his chance: his prestige was going, and if he once gained a reputation for 'raggability' there would be no more peace. The memory of Barmy Walters and the sordid tumult of his classroom came to him with a new piquancy.
"My God!" he said, "it sha'n't be that." He would have to go for Granny. But how did one go for such a creature? Granny always kept to the letter of the law and protested that he had meant nothing: was one simply to disregard his assertions, to call him a liar? How did Rayner manage? And there were the ideals. Would this method be consonant with the humanism of the new prefecture? It was all immensely difficult.
Later in the evening Rayner came to his study: he was very nice about it.
"I say, old man," he said kindly, "that wasn't a good beginning."
"It certainly wasn't," admitted Martin.
"Granny, I suppose?" asked the other.
"Yes, mainly."