the journey to Dublin was
to be the beginning of another; and he did not wish to end the one life
or begin the other. He could feel growing within him, an extraordinary
hatred of Trinity College, and he almost wrote to his father to say that
he would rather not go to a University at all than go to T. C. D. It was
cruel, he told himself, to separate him from his friends and compel him
to go to a college that meant nothing on earth to him.

"I shan't know any one there," he said to Gilbert and Ninian, "and I
probably won't want to know any one. It's a hole, that's what it is, a
rotten hole. If the dons were any good, they'd be at Oxford or
Cambridge!..."

"You're not much of a patriot," Ninian said.

"I don't want to be a damned patriot. I want to be with people I like. I
don't see why I should be compelled to go and live with a lot of people
I don't know and don't care about, just because I'm Irish and they're
Irish, when I really want to be with you and Gilbert and Roger.... I
haven't seen Roger since I left Rumpell's and I don't suppose I shall
see him for a long time!"

Gilbert tried to mock him out of his anger. "This emotion does you
credit, young Quinny!" he said, "and we are touched, Ninian and I.
Aren't we, Ninian! But you must be a man, Quinny! Four years hence, we
shall all meet in London, _Deo volente_, and we'll be able to compare
the education of Ireland with the education of England. Oh, Lordy God, I
sometimes wish we hadn't got minds at all. I think it must be lovely to
be a cow ... nothing to do but chew the damned cud all day. No soul to
consider, no mind to improve, no anything!..."

Gilbert and he left Boveyhayne together, but Gilbert was only going as
far as Templecombe with him, where he was to change on his way to
Cheltenham. Ninian and Mary saw them off at Whitcombe, and when he
remembered the circumstances in which she had seen him off before, Henry
had a longing to take hold of her arm and lead her to the end of the
platform, as he had done then, and tell her that he was sorry for
everything and beg her to start again where they had left off that day
... but Gilbert was there and Ninian was there, and there was no
opportunity, and the train went off, leaving the explanation unmade.

9

"Good-bye, Quinny!" Gilbert said at Templecombe.

"Good-bye, Gilbert!" Henry answered in a low tone.

"I suppose you'll write to me some day?"

"I suppose so. Yes, of course!..."

"Ripping day, isn'