Then, with a new and cautious idea in my head, I turned to Kitty again.

"On second thoughts," I said, "_don't_ say anything to Archie about my wanting an explanation. I'll settle with him. After all, it was bound to come sooner or later. It doesn't much matter. I'll see to it.... Well, I'm off. Good-bye, dear. I don't think I shall be able to see you again till Friday."

And I left her, nodded to Weston, and pa.s.sed out.

I daresay you guess what my new and cautious idea was. I had something of the last privacy to say to Archie; it was just as well that I should have the cloak of comparatively trivial personal remonstrance to cover it; but this was only part of it. The truth was that my brain had suddenly taken another of those startling leaps forward. In some conceivable last event (I was not planning one, you understand; it was merely that my mind was working somewhere ahead, independently and beyond my control) it might be necessary that I should have _no_ personal quarrel with him. In such an event none must suppose that our relation had been other than amicable. Yet I should be overdoing this (purely antic.i.p.atory) prudence to pa.s.s over the episode of the sky-blue uniform entirely. The thing was, or might become, a matter of nicely measured proportions. Already I was making the slight private affront serve my turn; presently I might want to make the pardon of that affront serve my turn also. This kind of thing is what I mean by the creation of an att.i.tude of mind and "attention to detail."

I made one more attempt to find Archie as I walked to St Pancras, but he was still not at home. Then I had to run for my train.

I worked in Pettinger's garden that week, carrying water, wheeling barrows, and filling baskets with fruit as I pa.s.sed between the canes.

Pettinger was away for two nights, but on the third evening he came up to me as I was pushing a heavy roller over the lawn and began to talk. I think he began for the sake of a pleasant word or two, but something I said seemed to engage his interest, an hour or more pa.s.sed, and then, as the phlox and canterbury bells began to glimmer in the twilight, he suddenly said, "Leave this and come inside--we can talk comfortably there."

We went in. I shall never forget that night. It was made memorable by the fact that master and gardener talked till two o'clock in the morning.

"Well, Jeffries," he said at last, with a sleepy yawn, "you're an extraordinary chap. I'm afraid you've made rather a lot of work for me this last hour or two."

"How so?" I asked.

"Well, I was going to try to get you a job something like your last, but you're a difficult man to find a job for. I won't ask you whether you know you're extraordinary; of course you know you are; and I'm going, if I can, to give you a chance--a real chance--not like that other--those cut-throats--what's their name."

I had told him about Rixon Tebb & Masters' and the rest of it.

"I've a bit of a pull here and there," he went on sleepily. "There's the 'Freight and Ballast Company'--I know a couple of their men--but we'll talk about that in the morning. I'm off to bed. Hope they've made you comfortable?"

It does not come within the scope of my present tale to speak of my later rapid rise; but I may say now that I owed my chance to Pettinger and to the berth he got me, with the coming of winter, in the offices of the "F. B. C."

I remained in his house all that week; then, on the Friday evening, I took a return ticket to town in order to attend my cla.s.s.

I had not been half-an-hour in the college that evening before I was aware that something had happened. Archie Merridew was not there, but Evie was, and so was Kitty Windus. I went through my work as usual, and then, at half-past nine, sought Kitty. It was she who told me the news.

"You've not heard, have you?" she asked, with a glance towards the senior students' room, through which Evie had just pa.s.sed. Again she was, in some manner I could not understand, eager, reserved, apprehensive and fidgety all at once.

"Heard what?" I asked.

"About Evie. It's come off. She and Archie are properly engaged."

From that moment dated a division of me into two separate men, of which I shall have more to say presently.

"Oh?" I replied, with complete calm. "That's good news indeed! Wait here a minute--I'll speak to her--don't go, for I want to see you."

I met Evie returning with her towel and celluloid box of soap. She too was excited, so excited that she would have pa.s.sed me, but I thought I understood that. I stopped her.

"Well, Evie?" I said, smiling.

She waited, painfully full, I couldn't help thinking, of emotion.

"It was you who congratulated me before," I said. "It's my turn now, I hear."

She looked at me and away again, and again at me and away.

"Thank you, Mr Jeffries," she said, beginning to make little pointings of her foot this way and that on the floor.

I spoke very gently. "Jeff--or Mr Jeffries if you prefer it--wishes you nothing but happiness, Evie," I said.

"Oh, thank you," she said, with increasing perturbation, "thank you very much indeed--thank you really--Jeff."

It was odd in the extreme. She gave me the reluctant "Jeff," and somehow I wished she hadn't, it came with such difficulty. Something, I was convinced, lay behind it. I did not expect her in the circ.u.mstances to be quite collected, but her manner was--I don't know how else to describe it--almost that of a child who has pleaded with authority for permission to bestow one final charity on an undesirable a.s.sociate....

What! I thought, she also ashamed to know a commissionaire!

"When are you going to be married?" I asked, after an awkward pause.

"Quite soon," she replied, equally awkward. "As soon as I can get my things ready." She stopped.

"I suppose Archie's coming here for you--to-night, I mean?"

"No--he's got a man to see--a friend--in Store Street, I think."

"Then may I walk along with you?"

She seemed to have feared the question. "Oh," she said quickly, "if you don't mind--I've something awfully private to say to Kitty--she and I have arranged to go on together."

("Not wanted," I said to myself.) Aloud, "Well, I hope you'll be happy, Evie," I added.

"Thank you," she said again, lifting curiously appealing eyes for a moment.

I turned abruptly from her, and sought Kitty, who was still waiting. I had picked up a sudden suspicion, and wished to confirm it.

"Ready?" I said, in a tone as matter of fact as I could a.s.sume.

Again she began to flutter. I couldn't understand what had come over the whole college.

"I'm sorry, Jeff," she began, with rapid effusiveness. "If I'd only known you wanted--but I've got to go somewhere."

I knew that, Evie had just told me.

"Woburn Place, you mean?"

"No, dear--somewhere else--quite different."

"Really?" I said, incredulously smiling and frowning both at once.

"Of course! How funny you are!"

I looked searchingly down into her eyes.

"I think _you're_ funny," I said slowly.

"You really must excuse me, Jeff--if you'd only let me know."