“My father’s one, you know.  So I’ve got to.  I’d rather play the piano.  But, of course, I wouldn’t say so to anyone but you.  It sounds too beastly silly——­”

“I’d say whatever I wanted to,” Robert retorted grandly, “I’ll always say what I want to and do what I jolly well like when I’m grown up anyhow.  You can if you’re strong enough.”

“But then people hate you,” Rufus said sadly.

“That doesn’t matter a bit.”

“Don’t you mind people not liking you?”

“Rather not.”

Rufus fumbled anxiously.

“Wouldn’t you be pleased if—­if you were asked to play in the eleven—­and the chaps cheered you like they do Christopher when he kicks a goal?”

“I shouldn’t care—­not a button.”  But he knew even then that it was not true.  His heart had leapt at the very thought.  He drew his fair brows together in the portentous Stonehouse scowl.  “It’s silly to mind what silly people think.  And kicking goals is no good.  I’m going to be a doctor—­not just the ordinary sort—­a big doctor—­and I’ll discover things—­and people like Christopher’ll come and beg me to keep them alive.”

Rufus sighed deeply.

“I wish I was like that.  I mind awfully—­being ragged, and all that.  I was awfully miserable until you came.  If you went away—­or didn’t care any more—­I don’t know what I’d do.  But if I went away you wouldn’t mind——­”

“Yes, I would.”

“But you’re so much stronger.”

“I like being strongest.”

And then and there he expounded the doctrine of the Survival, and Rufus began to shiver all over like a frightened pony.

“I think it’s perfectly beastly.  What’ll happen to me?  Anyone can lick me.  I wouldn’t have a chance.”

The tears came into his round, blue eyes and trickled down his freckled cheeks, and a sudden choking tenderness, a dim perception of all that this one friend meant to him, made Robert fling his arms about him and hug him close.

“Yes—­you would.  Because I’ll look after you—­always—­honest injun.”

2

There was one secret that he never told to anyone—­not even to Cosgrave.  He was ashamed of it.  He knew it was silly—­sillier than in believing in God—­and he had almost succeeded in forgetting it when it came true.  It happened.  Just when he was least expecting it it came round the corner.  First the music, a long way off, but growing louder and fiercer so that it seemed as though his fancy had suddenly jumped out of his brain and was running about by itself, doing just what it liked; then lights, torches with streaming flags of fire that put out the street lamps altogether, and the shadows of people marching—­running—­leaping—­capering.

Robert ran too.  He did not stop to think what it was.  He was wild with excitement, and as he ran he bounded into the air and waved his arms in a pent-up joy of living and moving.  He never had much chance to run.  You couldn’t run by yourself for nothing.  People stared or were annoyed when you bumped against them.  But now there was something to run for.  There was no one to see or hear him in the deserted Grove, and with each bound he let out an unearthly, exultant whoop.