a place in a big society. He was
habitually unsuccessful in examinations, but he became a proficient in
football, which gave him a certain small consequence. He began to give
thought to his clothes, and to adopt the customary tone of talk, not
because he felt in sympathy with it, but because it was a convenient
shield under which he could pursue his own ideas. But his tastes were
feeble enough; he spent hours in the great school library, a cool
panelled room, and though he had no taste for anything that was hard or
vigorous, he read an immense amount of poetry and fiction. He began,
too, to write poetry, with extraordinary precautions that his
occupation should not be discovered. He was present on one occasion
when a store of poems, the work of a curious and eccentric boy of his
own age, was discovered in the drawer of a bureau. These were solemnly
read aloud by a small tormentor, while the unhappy author, writhing
with shame and misery, was firmly held in a chair, and each composition
received with derisive comments and loud laughter. Hugh had joined, he
remembered with a sense of self-reproach, in the laughter and the
criticisms, though he felt in his heart both interest in and admiration
for the poems. But he dare not so far brave ridicule as to express his
feelings, and simply fell, tamely and ungenerously, into the general
tone. He did indeed make feeble overtures afterwards to the author,
which were suspiciously and fiercely repelled, and the only practical
lesson that Hugh learnt from the scene was to conceal his own literary
experiments with a painful caution.

But as the years passed there came a new influence into Hugh's life.
He had always been observant, in his quiet way, of other boys, and at
last, as his nature developed, he began to idealise them in a romantic
way. The first object of his admiration was a boy much older than
himself, an independent, graceful creature, who had a strong taste for
beautiful things, and adorned his room with china and pictures; he was
moreover a contributor of verses to the school magazine, which seemed
to Hugh models of elegance and grace. But he was far too shy to think
of attracting the notice of his hero. It simply became an intense
preoccupation to watch him, in chapel or hall; it was a fearful joy to
meet him, and he used to invent excuses for passing his room, till he
knew the very ornaments and pictures by sight. That room seemed to him
a kind of sacred