Paul saw little of Grimes during the next few days. They met at prayers and on the way to and from their classrooms, but the baize door that separated the school from the Doctor's wing was also separating them. Mr Prendergast, now in unchallenged possession of the other easy‑chair, was smoking away one evening when he suddenly said:
'You know, I miss Grimes. I didn't think I should, but I do. With all his faults, he was a very cheery person. I think I was beginning to get on better with him.
'He doesn't look as cheery as he did, said Paul. 'I don't believe that life "above stairs" is suiting him very well.
As it happened, Grimes chose that evening to visit them.
'D'you chaps mind if I come in for a bit? he asked with unwonted diffidence. They rose to welcome him. 'Sure you don't mind? I won't stay long.
'My dear man, we were just saying how much we missed you. Come and sit down.
'Won't you have some of my tobacco? said Prendergast.
'Thanks, Prendy! I just had to come in and have a chat. I've been feeling pretty fed up lately. Married life is not all beer and skittles, I don't mind telling you. It's not Flossie, mind; she's been hardly any trouble at all. In a way I've got quite to like her. She likes me, anyway, and that's the great thing. The Doctor's my trouble. He never lets me alone, that man. It gets on my nerves. Always laughing at me in a nasty kind of way and making me feel small. You know the way Lady Circumference talks to the Clutterbucks ‑ like that. I tell you I simply dread going into meals in that dining‑room. He's got a sort of air as though he always knew exactly what I was going to say before I said it, and as if it was always a little worse than he'd expected. Flossie says he treats her that way sometimes. He does it to me the whole time, damn him.
'I don't expect he means it, said Paul, 'and anyway I shouldn't bother about it.
'That's the point. I'm beginning to feel he's quite right. I suppose I am a pretty coarse sort of chap. I don't know anything about art, and I haven't met any grand people, and I don't go to a good tailor, and all that. I'm not what he calls "out of the top drawer". I never pretended I was, but the thing is that up till now it hasn't worried me. I don't think I was a conceited sort of chap, but I felt as good as anyone else, and I didn't care what people thought as long as I had my fun. And I did have fun, too, and, what's more, I enjoyed it. But now I've lived with that man for a week, I feel quite different. I feel half ashamed of myself all the time. And I've come to recognize that supercilious look he gives me in other people's eyes as well.