Railsford looked at him curiously.
“You surely forget, Felgate, that you are not speaking to a boy in the Shell.”
“No, I don’t. I know you’re a master, and head of a house, and a man who ought to be everything that’s right and good—”
“Come, come,” interrupted Railsford, “we have had enough of this. You are excited and forget yourself to talk in this foolish way.”
And he quitted the study.
What, he wondered, could be the meaning of all this wild outbreak on the part of the detected prefect? What did he mean by that “If you knew all I know”? It sounded like one of those vague menaces with which Arthur had been wont to garnish his utterances last term. What did Felgate know, beyond the secret of his own wrong-doings, which could possibly affect the Master of the Shell?
It flashed across Railsford suddenly—suggested perhaps by the connection of two ideas—that Arthur himself might be in some peril or difficulty. It was long since the master had attempted to control the secret of his prospective relationship with the vivacious young Shell-fish. Everybody knew about it as soon as ever he set foot in Grandcourt, and Daisy’s name was common property all over the house. Arthur had contrived to reap no small advantage from the connection. The prefects had pretty much left him alone, and, as a relative of the master, he had been tacitly winked at in many of his escapades, with a leniency which another boy could not have hoped for.
What if now Arthur should lie under the shadow of some peril which, if it fell, must envelop him and his brother-in-law both? If, for instance, he had committed some capital offence, which if brought to light should throw on him (Railsford) the terrible duty of nipping in the bud the school career of Daisy’s own brother? It seemed the only solution to Felgate’s mysterious threat, and it made him profoundly uncomfortable.
He felt he had not done all the might for the boy. He had been so scrupulously careful not to give any pretext for a charge of favouritism, that he had even neglected him at times. Now and then he had had a chat; but Arthur had such a painful way of getting into awkward topics that such conferences were usually short and formal. He had occasionally given an oversight to the boy’s work; but Arthur so greatly preferred to “mug,” as he called it, in his own study, that opportunities for serious private coaching had been quite rare.
Recently, too, a difference had sprung up between Arthur and Marky about the Smileys; and Railsford felt that he had not done all he might to smooth over that bitter memory and recover the loyalty and affection of the bereaved dog-fancier. It may have been some or all of these notions which prompted the master to invite his young kinsman to accompany him on the following day—being the mid-term holiday—on an expedition into the country.