Saundersons’ dance? Of course April will be going. They’re very old friends of ours, the Saundersons. Mr. Saunderson thinks such a lot of Arthur, too. You know, Mr. Whately, I met him in the High Street the other afternoon and he said to me, ‘How’s that clever son of yours getting on, Mrs. Curtis?’ ”
“Really, Mrs. Curtis.”
“Yes, really, Mr. Whately.”
It was at this point that Ralph arrived.
His look of surprised displeasure was obvious to everyone. But knowing Ralph, they mistook it for awkwardness. He did not like company, and his shyness was apparent as he stood in the doorway in an ill-fitting suit, with trousers that bagged at the knees, and with the front part of his hair smarmed across his forehead with one hurried sweep of a damp brush, at right angles to the rest of his hair, that fell perpendicularly from the crown of his head.
“Come along, Ralph,” said April, and made room for him in the window-seat. She treated him with an amused condescension. He was so clumsy; a dear fellow, so easy to rag. “And how did your exam. go?” she asked.
“All right.”
“No; but really, tell me about it. What were the maths like?”
“Not so bad.”
“And the geography? You were so nervous about that.”
“I didn’t do badly.”
“And the Latin and the Greek? I want to know all about it.”
“You don’t, really?”
“Yes, but I do.”
“No, you don’t,” he said impatiently. “You’d much rather hear about Roland and all the things he does at Fernhurst.”
There was a moment of difficult silence, then April said quite quietly:
“You are quite right, Ralph; as a matter of fact I should”; and she turned towards Roland, but before she could say anything, Mrs. Curtis once more assumed her monopoly of the conversation.
“Yes, Roland, you’ve told us nothing about that, and how you got your firsts. We were so proud of you, too. And you never wrote to tell us. If it hadn’t been for your father we should never have known.” And for the next half hour her voice flowed on placidly, while Ralph sat in a frenzy of self-pity and self-contempt, and Roland longed for an opportunity to kick him, and April looked out between the half-drawn curtains towards the narrow line of sky that lay darkly over the long stretch of roofs and chimney-pots, happy that Roland’s holidays had begun, regretting wistfully that childhood was finished for them, that they could no longer play their own games in the nursery, that they had become part of the ambitions of their parents.
When at last they rose to go, Ralph lingered for a moment in the doorway; he could not go home till April had forgiven him.
She stood on the top of the step, looking down the street to Roland, her heart still beating a little quickly, still disturbed by that pressure of the hand and that sudden uncomfortable meeting of the eyes when he had said “Good-by.” She did not notice Ralph till he began to speak to her.
“I am awfully sorry I was so rude to you, April. I’m rather tired. I didn’t mean to offend you. I wouldn’t have done it for worlds.”
She turned to him with a quiet smile.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said, “that’s nothing.”
And he could see that to her it was indeed nothing, that she had not thought twice about it, that nothing he said or did was of the least concern to her. He would much rather that she had been angry.
Next day Ralph came round to the Whatelys’ soon after breakfast.
“Well, feeling more peaceful to-day, old friend?”
Ralph looked at Roland in impotent annoyance. As he knew of old, Roland was an impossible person to have a row with. He simply would not fight. He either agreed to everything you said or else brushed away your arguments with a good-natured “All right, old man, all right!” On this occasion, however, he felt that he must make a stand.
“You’re the limit,” he said; “the absolute limit.”
“I don’t know about that, but I think you were last night.”
“Oh, don’t joke about it. You know what I mean. I think it’s pretty rotten for a fellow like you to go about with a shop assistant, but that’s not really the thing. What’s simply beastly is your coming back to April as though nothing had happened. What would she say if she knew?”
Roland refused to acknowledge omniscience. “I don’t know,” he said.
“She wouldn’t be pleased, would she?” Ralph persisted.
“I don’t suppose so.”
“No; well then, there you are; you oughtn’t to do anything you think she mightn’t like.”
Roland looked at him with a sad patience, as a preparatory schoolmaster at a refractory infant.
“But, my dear fellow, we’re not married, and we’re not engaged. Surely we can do more or less what we like.”
“But would you be pleased if you learned that she’d been carrying on with someone else?”
Roland admitted that he would not.
“Then why should you think you owe nothing to her?”
“It’s different, my dear Ralph; it’s really quite different.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is. Boys can do things that girls can’t. A flirtation means very little to a boy; it means a good deal to a girl—at least it ought to. If it doesn’t, it means that she’s had too much of it.”
“But I don’t see——” began Ralph.
“Come on, come on; don’t let’s go all over that again. We shall never agree. Let me go my way and you can go yours. We are too old friends to quarrel about a thing like this.”
Most boys would have been annoyed by Ralph’s attempt at interference, but it took a great deal to ruffle Roland’s lazy, equable good nature. He did not believe in rows. He liked to keep things running smoothly. He could never understand the people who were always wanting to stir up trouble. He did not really care enough either way. His tolerance might have been called indifference, but it possessed, at any rate, a genuine charm. The other fellow always felt what a thundering good chap Roland was—so good-tempered, such a gentleman, never harboring a grievance. People knew where they were with him; when he said a thing was over it was over.
“All right,” said Ralph grudgingly. “I don’t know that it’s quite the game——”
“Don’t worry. We’re a long way from anything serious. A good deal’s got to happen before we’re come to the age when we can’t
