"Yes," said Speed, rather curtly.

There were several jobs he had to do. Some of them he could postpone for a day, or perhaps, even for a few days, if he liked, but there was no advantage in doing so, and besides, he would feel easier when they were all done. First, he had to deliver a little pastoral lecture to the new boys. Then he had to chat with the prefects, old and new—rather an ordeal that. Then he had to patrol the dormitories and see that everything was in proper order. Then he had to take and give receipts for money which anybody might wish to "bank" with him. Then he had to give Burton orders about the morning. Then he had to muster a roll-call and enquire about those who had not arrived. Then, at ten-thirty, he had to see that all lights were out and the community settled in its beds for slumber....

All of which he accomplished automatically. He told the new boys, in a little speech that was meant to be facetious, that the one unforgivable sin at Lavery's was to pour tea-leaves down the waste-pipes of the baths. He told the prefects, in a voice that was harsh because it was nervous, that he hoped they would all co-operate with him for the good of the House. He told Burton, quite tonelessly, to ring the bell in the dormitories at seven-thirty, and to have breakfast ready in his sitting-room at eight. And he went round the dormitories at half-past ten, turning out gases and delivering brusque good-nights.

Then he went downstairs into the drawing-room of his own house where Helen was. He went in smiling. Helen was silent, but he knew from experience that silence with her did not necessarily betoken unhappiness. Yet even so, he found such silences always unnerving. To-night he wanted, if she had been in the mood, to laugh, to be jolly, to bludgeon away his fears. He would not have minded getting slightly drunk.... But she was silent, brooding, no doubt, happily, but with a sadness that was part of her happiness.

As he passed by the table in the dimly-lit room he knocked over the large cash-box full of the monies that the boys had banked with him. It fell on to the floor with a crash which made all the wires in the piano vibrate.

"Aren't you careless?" said Helen, quietly, looking round at him.

He looked at her, then at the cash-box on the floor, and said finally: "Damn it all! A bit of noise won't harm us. This isn't a funeral."

He said it sharply, exasperated, as if he were just trivially enraged. After he had said it he stared at her, waiting for her to say something. But she made no answer, and after a long pause he solemnly picked up the cash-box.

III

There came a January morning when he had a sudden and almost intolerable longing to see Clare. The temperature was below freezing-point, although the sun was shining out of a clear sky; and he was taking five alpha in art drawing in a room in which the temperature, by means of the steamiest of hot-water pipes, had been raised to sixty. His desk was at the side of a second-floor window, and as he looked out of it he could see the frost still white on the quadrangle and the housemaids pouring hot water and ashes on the slippery cloister-steps. He had, first of all, an urgent desire to be outside in the keen, crisp air, away from the fugginess of heated class-rooms; then faintly-heard trot of horses along the Millstead lane set up in him a restlessness that grew as the hands of his watch slid round to the hour of dismissal. It was a half-holiday in the afternoon, and he decided to walk up to Dinglay Fen, taking with him his skates, in case the ice should be thick enough. The thought of it, cramped up in a stuffy class-room, was a sufficiently disturbing one. And then, quite suddenly, there came into his longing for the fresh air and the freedom of the world a secondary longing—faint at first, and then afterwards stormily insurgent—a longing for Clare to be with him on his adventures. That was all. He just wanted her company, the tread of her feet alongside his on the fenland roads, her answers to his questions, and her questions for him to answer. It was a strange want, it seemed to him, but a harmless one; and he saw no danger in it.