He began to wander in and out of the lower floor rooms; out of the front door, round the verandah, and in by the French windows to the dining-room.
"I'll chuck school," he said. "Catch any of those self-made men going to school when they were thirteen. I'll have to struggle and screw and put myself to a night-school. That's what they did. A self-made man is good enough for me."
CHAPTER XI
THE ARTIST BY THE WAYSIDE
Elizabeth Bruce was "detained for inattention."
No one else out of all the four and thirty scholars of Wygate School was kept in to-day. One after the other, hands folded behind them, they had marched to the door. Then delightful sounds—the scuffling of feet, stifled screams, gigglings and low buzzings of talk—had stolen over the partition that separated the cloak-room from the class-room, and Elizabeth, sitting on the high-backed form, with all the other empty forms in front of her, nibbled her pencil in melancholy loneliness.
She wondered if Nellie Underwood and Cyril would wait for her. Only yesterday she had waited a dreary hour for them and had carried Cyril's bag home for him to ease his wounded spirit.
Then she began her task. She seized a slate, arranged two slate-pencils to work together and expedite her task and wrote: "Elizabeth Bruce detained for inattention."
When she had written the statement ten times the silence in the cloak-room struck chill upon her. All the rest had found their hats and bonnets then and gone outside.