"My dear fellow, I think you're by far the most sentimental chap I've ever come across!—Don't be hurt: it's not a crime. But it's just a bit of a danger, especially in writing a school-story. That atmosphere you talk about certainly does exist, and if I had the gift of self-expression I might try to write about it. I can see it clearly enough, even though I'm not a scrap in love, and even on the dreariest of days in the winter term. My advice to you is to wait and see if you can do the same.... Good night, Speed!"
"Good night," Speed called out, laughing.
Down Clanwell's corridor and up the stone flight of stairs and along his own corridor to the door of his own room his heart was thumping violently, for he knew that as soon as he was alone he would be drenched in the wild, tumultuous rapture of his own thoughts. Clanwell's advice, hazily remembered, faded before the splendour of that coming onrush; the whole interview with Clanwell vanished as if it had never happened, as if there had been a sort of cataleptic vacuum intervening between that scene by the Head's gateway and the climb upstairs to his room.
When he got to bed he could hardly sleep for joy.
CHAPTER FOUR
I
The first thing that Clare Harrington said to him when they met a few days later in Millstead High Street was: "Oh, congratulations, Mr. Speed!"
"Congratulations?" he echoed. "What for?"
She replied quietly: "Helen has told me."
He began to blush, and to hold his breath in an endeavour to prevent his cheeks from reddening to an extent that, so he felt, would be observed by passers-by. "Oh!" he gasped, with a half-embarrassed smile. Then, after a pause, he queried: "What has she told you?"
And Clare answered: "That you are going to marry her."