Bonover took a siesta early in the afternoon.

Yes, he would go out and find her and speak to her.  Nothing should stop him.

Once that decision was taken his imagination became riotous with things he might say, attitudes he might strike, and a multitude of vague fine dreams about her.  He would say this, he would say that, his mind would do nothing but circle round this wonderful pose of lover.  What a cur he had been to hide from her so long!  What could he have been thinking about?  How could he explain it to her, when the meeting really came?  Suppose he was very frank—­

He considered the limits of frankness.  Would she believe he had not seen her on Thursday?—­if he assured her that it was so?

And, most horrible, in the midst of all this came Bonover with a request that he would take “duty” in the cricket field instead of Dunkerley that afternoon.  Dunkerley was the senior assistant master, Lewisham’s sole colleague.  The last vestige of disapprobation had vanished from Bonover’s manner; asking a favour was his autocratic way of proffering the olive branch.  But it came to Lewisham as a cruel imposition.  For a fateful moment he trembled on the brink of acquiescence.  In a flash came a vision of the long duty of the afternoon—­she possibly packing for Clapham all the while.  He turned white.  Mr. Bonover watched his face.

“No,” said Lewisham bluntly, saying all he was sure of, and forthwith racking his unpractised mind for an excuse.  “I’m sorry I can’t oblige you, but ... my arrangements ...  I’ve made arrangements, in fact, for the afternoon.”

Mr. Bonover’s eyebrows went up at this obvious lie, and the glow of his suavity faded, “You see,” he said, “Mrs. Bonover expects a friend this afternoon, and we rather want Mr. Dunkerley to make four at croquet....”

“I’m sorry,” said Mr. Lewisham, still resolute, and making a mental note that Bonover would be playing croquet.

“You don’t play croquet by any chance?” asked Bonover.

“No,” said Lewisham, “I haven’t an idea.”

“If Mr. Dunkerley had asked you?...” persisted Bonover, knowing Lewisham’s respect for etiquette.

“Oh! it wasn’t on that account,” said Lewisham, and Bonover with eyebrows still raised and a general air of outraged astonishment left him standing there, white and stiff, and wondering at his extraordinary temerity.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SCANDALOUS RAMBLE.

As soon as school was dismissed Lewisham made a gaol-delivery of his outstanding impositions, and hurried back to his lodgings, to spend the time until his dinner was ready—­Well?...  It seems hardly fair, perhaps, to Lewisham to tell this; it is doubtful, indeed, whether a male novelist’s duty to his sex should not restrain him, but, as the wall in the shadow by the diamond-framed window insisted, “Magna est veritas et prevalebit.”  Mr. Lewisham