.

But his attitude to the town had been, it must be confessed, from the
very first a challenge. He had expected things that were not there; he
had thought that his dreams were realities, and when he had demanded
golden colours and had been shown stuff of sombre grey, there had been
wild rebellion and impatient discontent with the world. He had thought
Pendragon amazing in its utter disregard of the things that were to him
necessities, but he had forgotten that he himself despised so
completely things that were to Pendragon essentials. He had asked for
beauty and they had given him an Esplanade; he had searched for romance
and had discovered the new hotel; he dreamed of the sand and blue water
of the Cove and had awaked to find the place despised and contemned--a
site for future boarding-houses.

The town had thought him at first entertaining; they had made
allowances for a certain rather picturesque absurdity consequent on
backwoods and the friendship of Maories--men had laughed at the Club
and detailed Harry Trojan's latest with added circumstances and
incident, and for a while this was amusing. But his vehemence knew no
pause, and he stated his disgust at the practical spirit of the new
Pendragon with what seemed to the choice spirits at the Club
effrontery. They smiled and then they sneered, and at last they left
him alone.

So Harry found himself, at the end of the first week after his return,
alone in Pendragon.

He had not, perhaps, cared for their rejection. He had come, like
Gottwalt in _Flegejahre_, "loving every dog, and wishing that every dog
should love him"--but he had seen, at once, that his way must be apart
from theirs, and in that knowledge he had tried to find the comfort of
a minority certain of its own strength and disdainful of common
opinion. He had marvelled at their narrow vision and was unaware that
his own point of view was equally narrow.

And, after all, there was Robin. Robin and he would defy Pendragon and
laugh at its stupid little theories and short-sighted plans. And then,
slowly, irresistibly, he had seen that he was alone--that Robin was on
the side of Pendragon. He refused to admit it even now, and told
himself again and again that the boy was naturally a little awkward at
first--careless perhaps--certainly constrained. But gradually a wall
had been built up between them; they were greater strangers now than
they had been on that first evening of the return. Ah! how