And gradually he did learn to go in for most of the games: running, leaping, and climbing. One thing he absolutely refused—wrestling.
“Why should gentlemen, who were to be gentlemen all their lives, fight each other?” he asked. “They would not have to fight as men; it was not kind; it was not pleasant; it was hard.”
The boys were hard on him for saying it, mocking him fearfully; but they could not shake him there. He was of right blue blood; never caving-in before them, as Bill Whitney expressed it one day; he was only quiet and endured.
Whether the native Rouen air is favourable to freckles, I don’t know; but those on Van Rheyn’s face gradually disappeared over here. His complexion lost its redness also, becoming fresh and fair, with a brightish colour on the cheeks. The hair, growing longer, turned out to be of a smooth brown: altogether he was good-looking.
“I say, Johnny, do you know that Van Rheyn’s ill?”
The words came from William Whitney. He whispered them in my ear as we stood up for prayers before breakfast. The school had opened about a month then.
“What’s the matter with him?”
“Don’t know,” answered Bill. “He is staying in bed.”
Cribbing some minutes from breakfast, I went up to his room. Van Rheyn looked pale as he lay, and said he had been sick. Hall declared it was nothing but a bilious attack, and Van Rheyn thought she might be right.