During tea-time Eric was silent, as he felt pretty sure that none of the sixth form or other study boys would particularly sympathise with his late associates.  Since the previous evening he had been cool with Duncan, and the rest had long rather despised him as a boy who’d do anything to be popular; so he sat there silent, looking as disdainful as he could, and not touching the tea, for which he felt disinclined after the recent potations.  But the contemptuous exterior hid a self-reproving heart, and he felt how far more noble Owen and Montagu were than he.  How gladly would he have changed places with them! how much he would have given to recover some of their forfeited esteem!

The master on duty was Mr. Rose, and after tea he left the room for a few minutes while the tables were cleared for “preparation,” and the boys were getting out their books and exercises.  All the study and class-room boys were expected to go away during this interval; but Eric, not noticing Mr. Rose’s entrance, sat gossipping with Wildney about the dinner and its possible consequences to the school.

He was sitting on the desk carelessly, with one leg over the other, and bending down towards Wildney.  He had just told him that he looked like a regular little sunbeam in the smoking-room of the Jolly Herring, and Wildney was pretending to be immensely offended by the simile.

“Hush! no more talking,” said Mr. Rose, who did everything very gently and quietly.  Eric heard him, but he was inclined to linger, and had always received such mild treatment from Mr. Rose, that he didn’t think he would take much notice of the delay.  For the moment he did not, so Wildney began to chatter again.

“All study boys to leave the room,” said Mr. Rose.

Eric just glanced round and moved slightly; he might have gone away, but that he caught a satirical look in Wildney’s eye, and besides wanted to show off a little indifference to his old master, with whom he had had no intercourse since their last-mentioned conversation.

“Williams, go away instantly; what do you mean by staying after I have dismissed you?” said Mr. Rose sternly.

Every one knew what a favorite Eric had once been, so this speech created a slight titter.  The boy heard it just as he was going out of the room, and it annoyed him, and called to arms all his proud and dogged obstinacy.  Pretending to have forgotten something, he walked conceitedly back to Wildney, and whispered to him, “I shan’t go if he chooses to speak like that.”

A red flush passed over Mr. Rose’s cheek; he took two strides to Eric, and laid the cane sharply once across his back.

Eric was not quite himself, or he would not have acted as he had done.  His potations, though not deep, had, with the exciting events of the evening, made his head giddy, and the stroke of the cane, which he had not felt now for two years, roused him to madness.  He bounded up, sprang towards Mr. Rose, and almost before he knew what he was about, had wrenched the cane out of his hands, twisted it violently in the middle until it broke, and flung one of the pieces furiously into the fire.