They stared at each other almost defiantly for a moment; then, as if by mutual consent, allowed the conversation to wander into unimportant gossip about Millstead. Nor from those placid channels did it afterwards stray away. Hostility of a kind persisted between them more patently than ever; yet, in a curiously instinctive way, they shook hands when they separated as if they were staunch friends.
As he stepped out into High Street the thought of Helen came to him as a shaft of sunlight round the edges of a dark cloud.
VI
Term finished in a scurry of House-matches and examinations. School House won the cricket trophy and there was a celebratory dinner at which Speed accompanied songs and made a nervously witty speech and was vociferously applauded. "We all know we're the best House," said Clanwell, emphatically, "and what we've got to do is just to prove to other people that we are." Speed said: "I've only been in School House a term, but it's been long enough time for me to be glad I'm where I am and not in any other House." (Cheers.) Amidst such jingoist insincerities a very pleasant evening romped its way to a close. The following day, the last day of term, was nearly as full of new experiences as had been the first day. School House yard was full of boxes and trunks waiting to be collected by the railway carriers, and in amongst it all, small boys wandered forlornly, secretly happy yet weak with the cumulative passion of anticipation. In the evening there was the farewell dinner in the dining-hall, the distribution of the terminal magazine, and the end-of-term concert, this last concluding with the Millstead School-Song, the work of an uninspired composer in one of his most uninspired moments. Then, towards ten o'clock in the evening, a short service in chapel, followed by a "rag" on the school quadrangle, brought the long last day to a close. Cheers were shouted for the Masters, for Doctor and Mrs. Ervine, for those leaving, and (facetiously) for the school porter. That night there was singing and rowdyism in the dormitories, but Speed did not interfere.
He was ecstatically happy. His first term had been a triumph. And, fittingly enough, it had ended with the greatest triumph of all. Ever since Helen had told him of her confession to her father, Speed had been making up his mind to visit the Head and formally put the matter before him. That night, the last night of the summer term, after the service in chapel, when the term, so far as the Head was concerned with it, was finished. Speed had tapped at the door of the Head's study.
Once again the sight of that study, yellowly luminous in the incandescent glow, set up in him a sensation of sinister attraction, as if the room were full of melancholy ghosts. The Head was still in his surplice, swirling his arms about the writing-table in an endeavour to find some mislaid paper. The rows upon rows of shining leather-bound volumes, somebody on the Synoptic Gospels, somebody else's New Testament Commentary, seemed to surround him and enfold him like a protective rampart. The cool air of the summer night floated in through the slit of open window and blew the gas-light fitfully high and low. Speed thought, as he entered the room and saw the Head's shining bald head bowed over the writing-table: Here you have been for goodness knows how many years and terms, and now has come the end of another one. Don't you feel any emotion in it at all?—You are getting to be an old man: can you bear to think of the day you first entered this old room and placed those books on the shelves instead of those that belonged to your predecessor?—Can you bear to think of all the generations that have passed by, all the boys, now men, who have stared at you inside this very room, while time, which bore them away in a happy tide, has left you for ever stranded?—Why I, even I, can feel, after the first term, something of that poignant melancholy which, if I were in your place, would overwhelm me. Don't you—can't you—feel anything at all—
The Head looked up, observed Speed, and said: "Um, yes—pleased to see you, Mr. Speed—have you come to say good-bye—catching an early train to-morrow, perhaps—um, yes—eh?"
"No, sir. I wanted to speak to you on a private matter. Can you spare me a few moments?"
"Oh yes, most certainly. Not perhaps the—um—usual time for seeing me, but still—that is no matter. I shall be—um—happy to talk with you, Mr. Speed."
Speed cleared his throat, shifted from one foot to another, and began, rather loudly, as always when he was nervous: "Miss Ervine, sir, I believe, spoke to you some while ago about—about herself and me, sir."