CHAPTER ONE
I
He breakfasted with Helen upon the first morning of the winter term, inaptly named because winter does not begin until the term is over. They had returned the evening before from a month's holiday in Cornwall and now they were making themselves a little self-consciously at home in the first-floor rooms that had been assigned to them in Lavery's. The room in which they breakfasted overlooked the main quadrangle; the silver coffee-pot on the table shimmered in the rays of the late summer sun.
Midway through the meal Burton, the porter at Lavery's, tapped at the door and brought in the letters and the Daily Telegraph.
Speed said: "Hullo, that's luck!—I was thinking I should have to run down the town to get my paper this morning."
Burton replied, with a hint of reproach in his voice: "No sir. It was sent up from Harrington's as usual, sir. They always begin on the first day of term, sir."
Speed nodded, curiously conscious of a thrill at the mention of the name Harrington. Something made him suddenly nervous, so that he said, boisterously, as if determined to show Burton at all costs that he was not afraid of him: "Oh, by the way, Burton, you might shut that window a little, will you?—there's a draught."
"Yes, sir," replied Burton, again with a hint of subdued reproachfulness in his tone. While he was shutting the window, moving about very softly and stealthily himself yet making a tremendous noise with everything that had to be done with his large clumsy hands, it was necessary for Speed and Helen to converse on casual and ordinary subjects.
Speed said: "I should think the ground's far too hard for rugger, Helen."
She answered, somberly: "Yes, I daresay it is. It's really summer still, isn't it?—And I'm so glad. I hate the winters."
"You hate the winters, eh?—Why's that?"