It is well to draw a veil over the next half-hour. Both William and the meal had vanished. Robert tore his hair and appealed vainly to the heavens. He hinted darkly at suicide. For what is cold tongue and coffee to offer to an Ideal? The meal was discovered during the afternoon in its resting-place and given to William's mongrel, Jumble, who crept about during the next few days in agonies of indigestion. Robert had bitterly demanded of William why he went about the world spoiling people's lives and ruining their happiness. He had implied that when William met with the One and Only Love of his Life he need look for no help or assistance from him (Robert), because he (William) had dashed to the ground his (Robert's) cup of happiness, because he'd never in his life met anyone before like Miss Laing, and never would again, and he (William) had simply condemned him to a lonely and miserable old age, because who'd want to marry anyone that asked them to lunch and then gave them coffee and cold tongue, and he'd never want to marry anyone else, because it was the One and Only Love of his Life, and he hoped he (William) would realise, when he was old enough to realise, what it meant to have your life spoilt and your happiness ruined all through coffee and tongue, because someone you'd never speak to again had hidden the lunch. Whence it came that William, optimist though he was, felt that any appeal to Robert for funds would be inopportune, to say the least of it.
But Providence was on William's side for once. An old uncle came to tea and gave William five shillings.
"Going to dance at a Maypole, I hear?" he chuckled.
"P'raps," was all William said.
His family were relieved by his meekness with regard to the May Day festival. Sometimes William made such a foolish fuss about being dressed up and performing in public.
"You know, dear," said his mother, "it's a dear old festival, and quite an honour to take part in it, and a smock is quite a nice manly garment."
"Yes, Mother," said William.
The day was fine—a real May Day. The Maypole was fixed up in the field near the school, and the little performers were to change in the schoolroom.
William went out with his brown paper parcel of stage properties under his arm and stood gazing up the road by which Evangeline Fish must come to the school. For Evangeline Fish would have to pass his gate. Soon he saw her, her pale blue radiant in the sun.
"'Ullo!" he greeted her.