trying to account for it, if it was so; and wishing he were comfortably certain it was not so.
"Besides," added Forrester, "I shall not be able to stay many days, you know." Indeed it seemed to him that he had better not stay; but Kenyon's eyes were on him in a twinkling.
"How many?" he asked, almost with a gasp.
"A week at the outside; it's the Lancashire match the week after next."
Again Kenyon turned, and his sharp profile looked sharper than before against the pillow. "Of course you must play against Lancashire – and make your century," he said, with such a hollow heartiness that, first-class cricketer as he was, and few as were his present opportunities for first-class cricket, C. J. instantly resolved to cancel all remaining engagements.
Kenyon went on:
"I'm hoping to get up, you know, before long. Surely I've been here long enough? It's all rot, I say, keeping you in bed like this; you get as weak as a cat. I believe the governor thinks so too. I know they're going to have a doctor down from London to see me. If he lets me get up, and you come back after you've made that century, we might have some more cricket, mightn't we? I'd give anything to have some before the term begins. I want another of those leg-hits! I say, they think I might be able to go to St. Crispin's next term, don't they?"
Forrester remembered. "I don't know. You might be able, perhaps."
"Why do you say it like that?"
"Shall I tell you, old fellow? I'm not quite so keen on having you as I was a year ago. Stop! I'll tell you why. I didn't realise what it would be like. I rather fancied I should have a dozen Kenyons, and that Kenyon at school would be a saint: which was absurd, old fellow. I thought I should never, never, never lose my temper with you. Absurd again! We talked, you and I, of what we knew nothing about; I know something now; and it isn't all skittles and beer, Kenyon. Listen: there wasn't a fellow in the school I didn't punish time after time. Punish is a jolly word, isn't it? It would have been nice for us both, wouldn't it, my punishing you? Kenyon, there were two fellows I had to swish! You understand? I felt thankful you weren't there. I don't any longer feel that I want you there. I'd rather some other man kept you in, Kenyon, and licked you, old fellow, when you needed it." The truth is, Forrester had long had all this on his mind; as he uttered the last of it, he almost forgot why he had spoken now, and what Mr. Harwood had said on the stairs.
Kenyon lay very still, watching the darkling sky split in two by the window-sashes. He had dreamed of that school so often, he had looked forward to it so long. It was hard suddenly to stop looking forward, to have no more happy imaginary school-days from this moment forth; but if the real ones could never have been so happy, then he should feel thankful; and in any case there was less immediate necessity to be up and well, which in itself was a relief. It was sensibly darker, however, when Kenyon spoke, and once more his tone was a little forced.
"I suppose you're right. I'm glad you've told me this, C. J. I'm not so keen now, though I have been counting… I suppose I couldn't even have called you C. J., eh?"
"No, you'd have had to 'sir' me."
"Indeed, sir! Then I'm thankful I'm not going, sir! There's the gong, sir, yes, sir, you must go and dress, sir! The governor'll bring you up with him to say good-night. And to-morrow – I've heaps of things to tell you to-morrow, C. J. I'll think of 'em all night – sir!"
There were tears on his eyelashes, nevertheless; but the room was now really dark; his friend could not see.
IV
Forrester's disquieting apprehension of intrusion on his part, of that cruel intervention from which he shrank, was not for long a vague sensation. Mr. Harwood himself defined it, and with startling candour, that very evening after dinner.
Forrester had described the latter part of his chat with Kenyon, the part arising from something Mr. Harwood had said on the stairs, and from that other thing which had long been in his own mind. "I wouldn't have Kenyon, now I know what it is like," he had averred, with all the earnestness he had employed upstairs.
"You wouldn't get him," said Mr. Harwood, in sad irony. "He will never be well enough, Bodley is sure, to go to school."
"Is Dr. Bodley a very good man?"
"He is a very good doctor in ordinary, so to speak; but Kenyon's case is not exactly ordinary. Bodley is getting down a London man, a specialist, for a consultation. Kenyon knows about it."
"Yes, he thought it was to see whether he might get up."
"Whether there is the least chance of his ever getting up, as a matter of fact. I don't myself think he ever will. There is some hopeless disease of the hip. An operation is the only chance, and you know what a faint one."
"I'm glad I'm here!" Forrester involuntarily exclaimed; and it was at this that Mr. Harwood had pierced him with his eye and spoken his mind.
"I am glad too," said he, slowly; "yet I am sore – God knows how sore!"
The young man moved in his chair, but did not rise. Mr. Harwood held him with his eye. Forrester leant his elbow on the table, his head against his palm, and met that bitter, pitiable, yearning gaze.
"I am glad because Kenyon wanted you so much; sore, because he wanted you so much. Look at the reception he gave you, ill as he is! I never make him like that. I might have left him for weeks, alone with Ethel and the servants, and he wouldn't have welcomed me so. Yet I am always with the boy. I do everything for him. I have been another man to him, Charlie, since you were here last year. You taught me a lesson. I don't know whether to like you or hate you for it. You taught me to be my boy's friend – at any rate to try. It wasn't easy. We tired each other – we always did – we always may. We irritate each other too: he will seem frightened and fight shy of me. I suppose I deserve it – God knows! We have understood each other better, we have tired each other less – I am sure – since he has been up yonder. But all the time, mark you, he has been looking forward to your coming – to going to your school in the end. About that he has talked incessantly – as if it were the one thing to get better for – and about you. You're his hero, he worships you; I am only his father. You are everything to him…"
Forrester was inexpressibly shocked and moved. "You are mistaken, believe me you are!" he cried earnestly. "He has been telling me already how good you are to him, of all you do for him."
"Ah! he is a good boy; he is very grateful. He always says 'Thank you' – to me! Heaven, how I wish he'd forget that sometimes! But no; it was in those little things that I was continually finding fault with him, and now it's his turn. He has a special manner for me. He thinks before he speaks when he speaks to me. And I see it all! Why, I stand outside the door, and hear him talking to Ethel, and when I open it his very key changes. With you it's a hundred times worse. With you – God help me!" cried Harwood, with a harsh laugh, "I'm like a child myself … jealous of you … for winning what I never tried nor deserved to win."
He wiped the moisture from his face, and sat cold and still.
"I'll go to-morrow!" said Forrester, hoarsely.
"You will do nothing of the kind," retorted the other in his normal voice. "You will stay as long as you like – and Kenyon needs you."
V
C. J. was early abroad next morning – as once before. The weather had cleared up in the night. Sunlight and dew did just what they had done that other morning of yester-year. Sounds and scents were the same now as then. So
