ot only not to blame for what he had done, but had acted in highly
statesmanlike and praiseworthy manner. After all, he was in the sixth.
Not a prefect, it was true, but, still, practically a prefect. The
headmaster disliked unpleasantness between school and town, much more
so between the sixth form of the school and the town. Therefore, he had
done his duty in refusing to be drawn into a fight with Albert and
friends. Besides, why should he be expected to join in whenever he saw
a couple of fellows fighting? It wasn't reasonable. It was no business
of his. Why, it was absurd. He had no quarrel with those fellows. It
wasn't cowardice. It was simply that he had kept his head better than
Drummond, and seen further into the matter. Besides....

But when he sat down in his chair, this mood changed. There is a vast
difference between the view one takes of things when one is walking
briskly, and that which comes when one thinks the thing over coldly. As
he sat there, the wall of defence which he had built up slipped away
brick by brick, and there was the fact staring at him, without covering
or disguise.

It was no good arguing against himself. No amount of argument could
wipe away the truth. He had been afraid, and had shown it. And he had
shown it when, in a sense, he was representing the school, when Wrykyn
looked to him to help it keep its end up against the town.

The more he reflected, the more he saw how far-reaching were the
consequences of that failure in the hour of need. He had disgraced
himself. He had disgraced Seymour's. He had disgraced the school. He
was an outcast.

This mood, the natural reaction from his first glow of almost jaunty
self-righteousness, lasted till the lock-up bell rang, when it was
succeeded by another. This time he took a more reasonable view of the
affair. It occurred to him that there was a chance that his defection
had passed unnoticed. Nothing could make his case seem better in his
own eyes, but it might be that the thing would end there. The house
might not have lost credit.

An overwhelming curiosity seized him to find out how it had all ended.
The ten minutes of grace which followed the ringing of the lock-up bell
had passed. Drummond and the rest must be back by now.

He went down the passage to Drummond's study. Somebody was inside. He
could hear him.

He knocked at the door.

Drummond was sitting at the table reading. He looked up, and there was
a silence. Sheen's mouth