e many wiser
than herself, she covered up with a word a situation that she did not
understand, and left it at that.

The evening came on; the curtains were drawn. Tea arrived; still Jeremy
sat there, not speaking, not raising his eyes, a condemned creature.
Mary and Helen and Hamlet had had a wretched day. They all sympathised
with him.

The girls went to dress. Seven o'clock struck. They were taken
downstairs by Nurse, who had her evening out. Rose, the housemaid, would
sit with Master Jeremy.

Doors closed, doors opened, voices echoed, carriage-wheels were heard.

Jeremy and Hamlet were left to themselves...

III

The last door had closed, and the sudden sense that everyone had gone
and that he might behave now as he pleased, removed the armour in which
all day he had encased himself.

He raised his head, looked about the deserted nursery, and then, with
the sudden consciousness of that other lighted and busied place where
Whittington was pursuing his adventures, he burst into tears. He sobbed,
his head down upon his arms, and his body squeezed together so that his
knees were close to his nose and his hair in his boots. Hamlet
restored him to himself. Instead of assisting his master's grief, as a
sentimental dog would have done, by sighing or sniffing or howling, he
yawned, stretched himself, and rolled on the carpet. He did not
believe in giving way to feelings, and he was surprised, and perhaps
disappointed, at Jeremy's lack of restraint.

Jeremy felt this, and in a little while sobs came very slowly, and at
last were only little shudders, rather pleasant and healthy. He looked
about him, rubbed his red nose with a hideously dirty handkerchief, and
felt immensely sleepy.

No, he would not cry any more. Rose would shortly appear, and he did
not intend to cry before housemaids. Nevertheless, his desolation was
supreme. He was a liar. He had told lies before, but they had not been
discovered, and so they were scarcely lies... Now, in some strange way,
the publication of his lie had shown him what truly impossible things
lies were. He had witnessed this effect upon the general public; he
had not believed that he was so wicked. He did not even now feel really
wicked, but he saw quite clearly that there was one world for liars and
one for truthful men. He wanted, terribly badly, someone to tell him
that he was still in the right world...

And then, on the other side, the thought that Mary and Helen we