an aggressive treble.  But Robert only stared helplessly.  At another time he might have recognized “God—­love—­dove—­” and other words of one syllable, and he liked the tune.  But now he could see nothing but the clergyman and think of nothing but the little dark man.  He wondered madly what the latter was singing now and whether he had managed to fit in “damned rot—­damned rot” to the music.  But he did not dare to look.

A second prod roused him with a ghastly self-betraying start.

“You gotter sing,” the small boy whispered fiercely; “gotter sing, idjit.”

“Wh-a-a-t?”

Robert made a loud, unexpected noise in his throat.  His companion choked, spluttered and buried his impertinent face in a grubby handkerchief.  The dark man left his post hastily and stationed himself immediately at Robert’s side in anticipation of a further outbreak.  Someone in the rear giggled hysterically.  Robert dropped his head and riveted his swimming eyes on the clergyman’s boots.  He made no further attempt to save himself.  He was caught by his mysterious, relentless destiny.  He had been found out.

3

Mr. Morton, the headmaster, believed in Hygiene and the Educational Value of Beauty.  The classroom smelt vividly of carbolic.  There was a large lithograph of “Love and Life” on the pure white wall and a pot of flowers on the high window-sill.  Maps, blackboards and all other paraphernalia of learning were kept in merciful concealment.

Robert took possession of the desk nearest him and was at once ejected.  Its rightful owner scowled darkly at him.  At the next desk he tried to anchor himself, and there was a scuffle and a smothered exchange of blows, from which he escaped with a scraped shin and a strange, unfamiliar sense of being afraid.  There was no fight in him.  He didn’t want to fight.  He wanted to belong—­to be one of the herd—­and he knew dimly that he would first have to learn its laws and submit to its tortures.  He tried to grin back when the titter, which seemed endemic, broke out afresh as he stumbled on his ignominious pilgrimage, but the unasked-for partition in their amusement seemed to exasperate them.  They whispered things to one another.  They commented on his clothes.  He realized suddenly how poorly dressed he was.  There was a patch on the knee of his trousers and a mended tear on his shiny jacket.  His finger-nails weren’t very clean.  Christine had gone off too early to be sure that he had done them, and he had never thought much of that sort of thing.  Now he was paralysed with shame.  He could feel the tears strangling him.

Fortunately the desk in the far corner belonged to nobody.  It was old and battered and covered with the undecipherable carvings of his predecessors, but at once he loved it.  It was his.  Its retired position seemed to offer him protection.  He hid behind it, drawing a long, shuddering sigh of thankfulness.