For she had gathered that success in the coming examination was of importance to Mr. Jeffries. She did not know the nature of his studies; later she surmised that those had been only loosely linked to the ordinary school curriculum, and that while for his Certificate's sake he must acquire all that text-books could tell him, his real broodings had been over matters that are antecedent to text-books. That was probably the difference between him and Mr. Weston. Mr. Weston was said to be clever, but his cleverness ended at the point where real inquiry began. More than this Louie did not know. You cannot, after all, ask the pioneer what he goes forth for to see. He goes forth to see whatever there may be to be seen.
The weeks that had intervened since that evening when Louie had seen that wonderful radiance of his face had done nothing to alter her conviction that if there was a dark horse in that Holborn stable at all the name of that horse was Mr. Jeffries.
As it happened, Mr. Jeffries was almost the first person she encountered when, on the Friday morning of the examination, she entered the School at half-past ten. He wore the new brown suit that had been remarked on at the meetings of the Executive of the social, and he was looking with curiosity about him. They had made quite extensive preparations for the examination. The whole place had been divided into compartments with hired yellow-painted screens, and screens also barricaded the E of reference-books near the bay window of the general-room. New pens and new blotting-paper lay on the desks, and the little porcelain inkwells had been newly filled. Then it occurred to Louie that it was more than likely that Mr. Jeffries had never been in the place in the daytime before. He must have got the day off from that "somewhere in the City" that Kitty Windus had said sounded so prosperous. His tawny hair was as flat and silky as ever, and his chin as cleanly shaved. He passed her with a curt bow and continued his inspection of the place. The candidates stood talking in groups, waiting for eleven o'clock.
"Have you discovered your—er—appointed place, Miss Causton?" said Weston, coming up to Louie. "Good, good! I must now take my departure. Members of the Staff are not permitted to remain on the premises during the hours devoted to the examination. I wish you—er—good luck."
He seemed to change his mind about saying "a happy issue from all your afflictions."
By eleven o'clock Louie was seated in her little screen-enclosed compartment. A sort of hired mourner read a formal caution to the candidates. She noticed that it lacked the largior ether of the third person indicative, being, indeed, in the second person imperative; and then she drew her paper to her.
Quiet fell on the examination-rooms.
She found her papers no more difficult than she had anticipated. On one point only, a matter of indenting in actual practice, was she a little in doubt, and a minute in the old ledger-room at lunch-time would tell her whether her answer had been right or wrong. She read over again what she had written; it seemed, with the possible exception of that single point, all right; and she tilted her chair, put her hands behind her head, and leaned back. The candidates had been warned that they must bring lunch with them. It was half-an-hour from lunch-time yet.
Her place was by the folding door of the general-room. From it she could see nothing save the stationery cupboard on her left, and, beyond it, the next screen-enclosed compartment. She was wondering who was in it when a foot moved beneath the yellow screen. It was the foot of Mr. Jeffries. Louie hoped that he was getting on well, and then dismissed him from her thoughts. She began to wonder about the practical usefulness of the examination again.
Doubtless it was well enough in its way, but less than ever could she persuade herself that this kind of thing was to be her destiny. There were too many other likelihoods—not to speak of the one certainly so huge that she had sometimes been actually in danger of leaving it out of the account altogether. Idly she counted them. First, there was the certainty.... Next, she would probably be leaving Sutherland Place soon, to go—where? She did not know. At the price of submission to Uncle Augustus she could go back home; or Chaff would have her looked after; but both these courses were rather out of the question. They were out of the question because lately something else had been more and more in her thoughts—her unknown father. That father might, for all she knew, be the bugbear her mother had always made him out to be; but on the other hand he might not. She knew her mother, and the more she thought of it the more she gave her father the benefit of an increasing number of doubts. Until she should have seen him it was now no more than fair that she should do so. Moreover, she could see him at any time without his being any the wiser of the—inspection. Chaff knew where he was; Chaff, who was always fetching or taking her somewhere, would take her there also. She was resolved to go sooner or later, and later might be—who knew?—too late.