their going filled him with exhilaration.  Now, being happy, he was able to work, and during the remaining weeks of the term set himself to make up for his long neglect.  His brain worked easily, and he took a keen pleasure in the activity of his intellect.  He did very well in the examinations that closed the term.  Mr. Perkins made only one remark:  he was talking to him about an essay he had written, and, after the usual criticisms, said: 

“So you’ve made up your mind to stop playing the fool for a bit, have you?”

He smiled at him with his shining teeth, and Philip, looking down, gave an embarrassed smile.

The half dozen boys who expected to divide between them the various prizes which were given at the end of the summer term had ceased to look upon Philip as a serious rival, but now they began to regard him with some uneasiness.  He told no one that he was leaving at Easter and so was in no sense a competitor, but left them to their anxieties.  He knew that Rose flattered himself on his French, for he had spent two or three holidays in France; and he expected to get the Dean’s Prize for English essay; Philip got a good deal of satisfaction in watching his dismay when he saw how much better Philip was doing in these subjects than himself.  Another fellow, Norton, could not go to Oxford unless he got one of the scholarships at the disposal of the school.  He asked Philip if he was going in for them.

“Have you any objection?” asked Philip.

It entertained him to think that he held someone else’s future in his hand.  There was something romantic in getting these various rewards actually in his grasp, and then leaving them to others because he disdained them.  At last the breaking-up day came, and he went to Mr. Perkins to bid him good-bye.

“You don’t mean to say you really want to leave?”

 Philip’s face fell at the headmaster’s evident surprise.

“You said you wouldn’t put any objection in the way, sir,” he answered.

“I thought it was only a whim that I’d better humour.  I know you’re obstinate and headstrong.  What on earth d’you want to leave for now?  You’ve only got another term in any case.  You can get the Magdalen scholarship easily; you’ll get half the prizes we’ve got to give.”

Philip looked at him sullenly.  He felt that he had been tricked; but he had the promise, and Perkins would have to stand by it.

“You’ll have a very pleasant time at Oxford.  You needn’t decide at once what you’re going to do afterwards.  I wonder if you realise how delightful the life is up there for anyone who has brains.”

“I’ve made all my arrangements now to go to Germany, sir,” said Philip.

“Are they arrangements that couldn’t possibly be altered?” asked Mr. Perkins, with his quizzical smile.  “I shall be very sorry to lose you.  In schools the rather stupid boys who work always do better than the clever boy who’s idle, but when the clever boy works—­why then, he does what you’ve done this term.”