“Yes,” she answered, “quite early. Bab and I are at school too, you know?”
“Yes, I know. I wish I could see you sometimes....”
“Well, can’t you?... You’ll be coming home with Kit some holiday.”
“Perhaps I will. I hope so.” He was silent for a moment, then with a strange shyness, he said, “Will you—will you give me those violets?”
Betty was silent. She hesitated for a moment, then unpinned the violets from her dress, and gave them to him. Their hands met in the dark, and fluttered in a little clasp for the moment. Then Tony slipped the violets into his pocket. They were at the Inn steps, and to the surprise of all, he declined to come in, but bade them good-bye there.
Instead of going back to the school, he struck across the meadows to the beach. It had cleared at nightfall, and the stars were shining in a deep blue sky, and a lovely young crescent moon, cloud-clung, hung in the west. Tony walked up the beach alone, thinking, feeling intensely. The silent somber beauty of the night, the great stars, the lazy splash of the little foam-flecked waves upon the sands, the cool frosty dark, appealed to him deeply. He could scarcely have told of what he was thinking: of various things—the day’s events, the celebration, Betty and the violets she had given him, Finch and his hungry eyes, life. The world seemed beautiful to him, but strange and sad.... Years afterward he was to recall that night, and remember that it had marked a definite moment in the process of his coming to himself.
At the end of the beach he met Mr. Morris, who was also walking alone. “Hello,” exclaimed the master, “what are you doing here? The conqueror is tired of plaudits, eh?”
“What brings you, magister?... I wanted to be alone I guess.”
“And I,” said Morris, with a smile. “Sometimes a day of excitement reacts on me like this. I need to round it off with a walk by myself. Let’s go back together though, if you have had enough of yourself as I have.”
“Quite enough,” said Tony, as he turned with the older man back toward the school.