"Did you come across any of the Barnets when you were down there?"
she interrupted; "Eliza Barnet is rather taken up with all those

subjects."
In the propagandist movements of Sociology, as in other arenas of

life and struggle, the fiercest competition and rivalry is
frequently to be found between closely allied types and species.

Eliza Barnet shared many of Henry Greech's political and social
views, but she also shared his fondness for pointing things out at

some length; there had been occasions when she had extensively
occupied the strictlylimited span allotted to the platform oratory

of a group of speakers of whom Henry Greech had been an impatient
unit. He might see eye to eye with her on the leading questions of

the day, but he persistently wore mental blinkers as far as her
estimable qualities were concerned, and the mention of her name was

a skilful lure drawn across the trail of his discourse; if
Francesca had to listen to his eloquence on any subject she much

preferred that it should be a disparagement of Eliza Barnet rather
than the prevention of destitution.

"I've no doubt she means well," said Henry, "but it would be a good
thing if she could be induced to keep her own personality a little

more in the background, and not to imagine that she is the
necessary mouthpiece of all the progressive thought in the

countryside. I fancy Canon Besomley must have had her in his mind
when he said that some people came into the world to shake empires

and others to move amendments."
Francesca laughed with genuine amusement.

"I suppose she is really wonderfully well up in all the subjects
she talks about," was her provocative comment.

Henry grew possibly conscious of the fact that he was being drawn
out on the subject of Eliza Barnet, and he presently turned on to a

more personal topic.
"From the general air of tranquillity about the house I presume

Comus has gone back to Thaleby," he observed.
"Yes," said Francesca, "he went back yesterday. Of course, I'm

very fond of him, but I bear the separation well. When he's here
it's rather like having a live volcano in the house, a volcano that

in its quietest moments asks incessant questions and uses strong
scent."

"It is only a temporary respite," said Henry; "in a year or two he
will be leaving school, and then what?"

Francesca closed her eyes with the air of one who seeks to shut out
a distressing vision. She was not fond of looking intimately at

the future in the presence of another person, especially when the
future was draped in doubtfully auspicious colours.

"And then what?" persisted Henry.
"Then I suppose he will be upon my hands."

"Exactly."
"Don't sit there looking judicial. I'm quite ready to listen to

suggestions if you've any to make."
"In the case of any ordinary boy," said Henry, "I might make lots

of suggestions as to the finding of suitableemployment. From what
we know of Comus it would be rather a waste of time for either of

us to look for jobs which he wouldn't look at when we'd got them
for him."

"He must do something," said Francesca.
"I know he must; but he never will. At least, he'll never stick to

anything. The most hopeful thing to do with him will be to marry
him to an heiress. That would solve the financial side of his

problem. If he had unlimited money at his disposal, he might go
into the wilds somewhere and shoot big game. I never know what the

big game have done to deserve it, but they do help to deflect the
destructive energies of some of our social misfits."

Henry, who never killed anything larger or fiercer than a trout,
was scornfully superior on the subject of big game shooting.

Francesca brightened at the matrimonial suggestion. "I don't know
about an heiress," she said reflectively. "There's Emmeline

Chetrof of course. One could hardly call her an heiress, but she's
got a comfortable little income of her own and I suppose something

more will come to her from her grandmother. Then, of course, you
know this house goes to her when she marries."

"That would be very convenient," said Henry, probably following a
line of thought that his sister had trodden many hundreds of times

before him. "Do she and Comus hit it off at all well together?"
"Oh, well enough in boy and girl fashion," said Francesca. "I must

arrange for them to see more of each other in future. By the way,
that little brother of hers that she dotes on, Lancelot, goes to

Thaleby this term. I'll write and tell Comus to be specially kind
to him; that will be a sure way to Emmeline's heart. Comus has

been made a prefect, you know. Heaven knows why."
"It can only be for prominence in games," sniffed Henry; "I think

we may safely leave work and conduct out of the question."
Comus was not a favourite with his uncle.

Francesca had turned to her writingcabinet and was hastily
scribbling a letter to her son in which the delicate health, timid

disposition and other inevitable attributes of the new boy were
brought to his notice, and commanded to his care. When she had

sealed and stamped the envelope Henry uttered a belated caution.
"Perhaps on the whole it would be wiser to say nothing about the

boy to Comus. He doesn't always respond to directions you know."
Francesca did know, and already was more than half of her brother's

opinion; but the woman who can sacrifice a clean unspoiled penny
stamp is probably yet unborn.

CHAPTER II
LANCELOT CHETROF stood at the end of a long bare passage,

restlessly consulting his watch and fervently wishing himself half
an hour older with a certain painful experience already registered

in the past; fortunately" target="_blank" title="ad.不幸；不朽；可惜">unfortunately it still belonged to the future, and
what was still more horrible, to the immediate future. Like many

boys new to a school he had cultivated an unhealthy passion for
obeying rules and requirements, and his zeal in this direction had

proved his undoing. In his hurry to be doing two or three
estimable things at once he had omitted to study the notice-board

in more than a perfunctory fashion and had thereby missed a
football practice specially ordained for newly-joined boys. His

fellow juniors of a term's longer standing had graphically
enlightened him as to the inevitable consequences of his lapse; the

dread which attaches to the unknown was, at any rate, deleted from
his approaching doom, though at the moment he felt scarcely

grateful for the knowledge placed at his disposal with such lavish
solicitude.

"You'll get six of the very best, over the back of a chair," said
one.

"They'll draw a chalk line across you, of course you know," said
another.

"A chalk line?"
"Rather. So that every cut can be aimed exactly at the same spot.

It hurts much more that way."
Lancelot tried to nourish a wan hope that there might be an element

of exaggeration in this uncomfortably realistic description.
Meanwhile in the prefects' room at the other end of the passage,

Comus Bassington and a fellow prefect sat also waiting on time, but
in a mood of far more pleasurable expectancy. Comus was one of the

most junior of the prefect caste, but by no means the least well-
known, and outside the masters' common-room he enjoyed a certain

fitful popularity, or at any rate admiration. At football he was
too erratic to be a really brilliantplayer, but he tackled as if

the act of bringing his man headlong to the ground was in itself a
sensuous pleasure, and his weird swear-words whenever he got hurt

were eagerly treasured by those who were fortunate enough to hear
them. At athletics in general he was a showy performer, and

although new to the functions of a prefect he had already
established a reputation as an effective and artistic caner. In

appearance he exactly fitted his fanciful Pagan name. His large
green-grey eyes seemed for ever asparkle with goblinmischief and

the joy of revelry, and the curved lips might have been those of
some wickedly-laughing faun; one almost expected to see embryo

horns fretting the smoothness of his sleek dark hair. The chin was
firm, but one looked in vain for a redeeming touch of ill-temper in