just because he isn't their
colour----"

Roy started. "Was it only because of _that_?" he asked with emphasis.

"'Course it was. Plain as a pike-staff. I suppose they'd bullied him
into cheeking them. And they were hacking him on to his knees--forcing
him to salaam." Twin sparks sprang alight in his eyes. "That sort of
thing--makes me feel like a kettle on the boil. Wish I'd _had_ a boiling
kettle to empty over Bennet."

"So do I--the mean Scab! And he's pinched your bicycle."

"No fear! You bet we'll find it round the corner. He wouldn't have the
spunk to go right off with it. But look here--what I mean is"--hesitant,
yet resolute, he harked back to the main point--"if any of that lot
came to know--about India and--your mother, well--they're proper
skunks, some of them. They might say things that would make _you_ feel
like a kettle on the boil."

"If they did--I would kill them."

Roy stated the fact with quiet deliberation, and without noticing that
he had repeated the very words of the vanished victim.

This time Desmond did not treat it as a joke.

"'Course you would," he agreed gravely. "And that sort of shindy's no
good for the school. So I thought--better give you the tip----"

"I--see," Roy said in a low voice, without looking up. He did not see;
but he began dimly to guess at a so far unknown and unsuspected state of
mind.

Desmond sat silent while he shook the sand out of his boots. Then he
remarked in an easier tone: "Quite sure there's no damage?"

Roy, now on his feet, found his left leg uncomfortably stiff--and said
so.

"Bad luck! We must walk it off. I'll knead it first, if you like. I've
seen them do it on the Border."

His unskilled manipulation hurt a good deal; but Roy, overcome with
gratitude, gave no sign.

When it was over they set out for their homeward tramp, and found the
bicycle, as Desmond had prophesied. He refused to ride on; and Roy
limped beside him, feeling absurdly elated. The godlike one had come to
earth indeed! Only the remark about his mother still rankled; but he
felt shy of returning to the subject. The change in Desmond's manner had
puzzled him. Roy glanced admiringly at his profile--the straight nose,
the long mouth that smiled so readily, the resolute chin, a little in
the air. A clear case of love at sight, schoolboy love; a passing phase
of human efflorescence; yet, in passing, it will sometimes leave a mark
for life. Roy, instinctively a hero-worshipper, r