even at Hilaria's presence as at this sudden nakedness of
thought and emotion. Doughty, set on justifying himself at least as far
as accuracy went, held on. "I heard it at once when I went to my uncle's
at Penzance last holidays. Everyone knows it down there. Of course Ruan
knew it all along; he's been kidding all you fellows. He's no right in a
school for gentlemen at all. His father married his mother when he was
dying and all the brats but him were already born. That's why Ruan's
being brought up a gentleman--because he's the only one who's not a
bastard."

"Shut your foul mouth," ordered Polkinghorne angrily. "Hilaria, let
me--"

"It's not true," cried Hilaria. "Tell them it's not true, Ishmael."

Killigrew had the quicker instinct. "What does it matter if it's true or
not?" he asked. "We all know Ruan, and we think he's an awfully nice
chap, and nothing else is any affair of ours. We don't care what
Doughty's father and mother are, because we don't like him; we don't
care what Ruan's are because we do like him. Personally, I don't see why
Ruan should mind either. The thing doesn't alter him at all."

But that was exactly what Ishmael felt it did, though how he could not
yet have told. Although he never doubted what he heard, it seemed to him
like a dream that he had dreamt long ago and forgotten. It was a curious
sense of unreality that impressed him most, that feeling of "This cannot
really have happened to me ..." that everyone knows in the first moment
of disaster. It was this sensation, not any temporising or actual
disbelief, that kept him still motionless, staring. Polkinghorne began
to feel the proprieties outraged by this immobility.

"I say," he began, "you can't take no notice ...; he's said things about
your people, you know--about your mother ..."

For in common with many male creatures, men and boys, Polkinghorne,
though not feeling more than others any particular sentiment beyond
affection for his mother, yet held the point of honour, perhaps dating
from ancient days of matriarchy, that an insult to one's mother was the
deepest to oneself. Ishmael, too honest to be influenced by this
consideration, yet felt constrained by the weight of public opinion.
Also he was still upon the uplift of his mood; his blood tingled the
more for the mental shock that had numbed his reasoning faculties. As in
his turn he hit Doughty's cheek he felt a little glow at his own
carelessness of consequences. Polkinghorn