She was not able to recall the process of the states that flowered in that mysterious sense of well-being and exaltation.  A year ago Frank Drayton had been only “that nice man we used to meet at Cheltenham.”  First of all he had been Ferdie’s and Vera’s friend.  Then he became Nicky’s friend; the only one who took a serious interest in his inventions and supported him when he wanted to go into the Army and consoled him when he was frustrated.  Then he had become the friend of the family.  Now he was recognized as more particularly Dorothea’s friend.

At Cheltenham he had been home on leave; and it was not until this year that he had got his job at Woolwich teaching gunnery, while he waited for a bigger job in the Ordnance Department.  Ferdie Cameron had always said that Frank Drayton would be worth watching.  He would be part of the brains of the Army some day.  Nicky watched him.  His brains and their familiarity with explosives and the machinery of warfare had been his original attraction for Nicky.  But it was Dorothea who watched him most.

She plunged abruptly into Nicky’s affair, giving names and lineage.  “You know all sorts of people, do you know anything about her?”

He looked at her clearly, without smiling.  Then he said “Yes.  I know a good bit about her.  Is that what’s wrong with Nicky?”

“Not exactly.  But he’s been sent down.”

His wry smile intimated that such things might be.

Then she told him what the Master had written and what the Professor had written and what Michael had written, and what Nicky had said, and what she, Dorothea thought.  Drayton smiled over the Master’s and the Professor’s letters, but when it came to Michael’s letter he laughed aloud.

“It’s all very well for us.  But Daddy and Mummy are breaking their hearts.  Daddy says he’s going down to Cambridge to see what really did happen.”

Again that clear look.  She gathered that he disapproved of “Booster’s” wife.  He disapproved of so many things:  of Women’s Suffrage; of revolutions; of women who revolted; of anybody who revolted; of Mrs. Palmerston-Swete and Mrs. Blathwaite and Angela Blathwaite.  It was putting it too mildly to say he disapproved of Rosalind Jervis; he detested her.  He disapproved of Vera and of her going to see Vera; she remembered that he had even disapproved, long ago, of poor Ferdie, though he liked him.  Evidently he disapproved of “Booster’s” wife for the same reason that he disapproved of Vera.  That was why he didn’t say so.

“I believe you think all the time I’m right,” she said.  “Would you go down if you were he?”

“No.  I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because he won’t get anything out of them.  They can’t give her away any more than Nicky can.  Or than you can, Dorothy.”

“You mean I’ve done it already—­to you.  I had to, because of Nicky.  I can’t help it if you do think it was beastly of me.”