ime, never to sit up for him again. Yet, though Papa's
winnings or losings (upon which his substance practically depended)
in no way interested her, she was always the first to meet him when he
returned home in the small hours of the morning. This she was incited
to do, not only by the strength of her devotion, but by a certain secret
jealousy from which she suffered. No one in the world could persuade her
that it was REALLY from his club, and not from a mistress's, that Papa
came home so late. She would try to read love secrets in his face, and,
discerning none there, would sigh with a sort of enjoyment of her grief,
and give herself up once more to the contemplation of her unhappiness.

As the result of these and many other constant sacrifices which occurred
in Papa's relations with his wife during the latter months of that
winter (a time when he lost much, and was therefore out of spirits),
there gradually grew up between the two an intermittent feeling of tacit
hostility--of restrained aversion to the object of devotion of the kind
which expresses itself in an unconscious eagerness to show the object in
question every possible species of petty annoyance.

XLIII. NEW COMRADES

The winter had passed imperceptibly and the thaw begun when the list
of examinations was posted at the University, and I suddenly remembered
that I had to return answers to questions in eighteen subjects on which
I had heard lectures delivered, but with regard to some of which I had
taken no notes and made no preparation whatever. It seems strange that
the question "How am I going to pass?" should never have entered my
head, but the truth is that all that winter I had been in such a state
of haze through the delights of being both grown-up and "comme il faut"
that, whenever the question of the examinations had occurred to me, I
had mentally compared myself with my comrades, and thought to myself,
"They are certain to pass, and as most of them are not 'comme il faut,'
and I am therefore their personal superior, I too am bound to come out
all right." In fact, the only reason why I attended lectures at all
was that I might become an habitue of the University, and obtain Papa's
leave to go in and out of the house. Moreover, I had many acquaintances
now, and often enjoyed myself vastly at the University. I loved the
racket, talking, and laughter in the auditorium, the opportunities for
sitting on a back bench, and letting the measured voice o