"Yes, quite right."
"Well, now, Mr. Speed—such—um—affairs are rather undignified, don't you think? I'm not—um—apportioning blame—oh, no, not in any way, but I do—um, yes—I most certainly do think that a housemaster should avoid such incidents if he can possibly do so. No—um—no personal reflection on you at all, Mr. Speed—merely my advice to you, as a somewhat elderly man to an—um, yes—to a friend. Yes, a friend. Perhaps I might add more—um—significantly—to an—um—son-in-law."
He smiled a wide, sly smile. Speed clenched his hands on his knees. The dark study grew almost intolerable. He felt he would like to take Ervine's mottled neck in his hands and wring it—carefully and calculatingly....
When he was outside the room, in the darkness between the inner and the outer doors, his resentment rose to fever-pitch. He stopped, battling with it, half inclined to re-enter the study and make a scene, yet realising with the sane part of him that he could not better his position by so doing. Merely as an outlet for tempestuous indignation, however, the idea of returning to the fray attracted him, and he paused in the darkness, arguing with himself. Then all at once his attention was rivetted by the sound, sharp and clear, of Mrs. Ervine's voice. She had entered the study from the other door, and he heard soft steps treading across the carpet. "Did you tell him?" he heard her say. And the Head's voice boomed back: "Yes, my dear. Um yes—I told him."
A grim, cautious smile crept over Speed's mouth. He put his ear to the hinge of the inner door and listened desperately.
He heard again the voice of Mrs. Ervine. "Did you tell him he might have to quit Lavery's at the end of the term?"
"I—um—well—I didn't exactly put it to him—so—um—so definitely. It seemed to me there was no—um—no necessity. He may be all right, even yet, you know.
"He won't. He's too young. And he's lost too much ground already."
"I always thought he was too—um—too youthful, my dear. But you overruled my——"
"Well, and you know why I did, don't you? Oh, I've no patience with you. Nothing's done unless I do it."