CHAPTER XV

THE ARRIVAL OF NEMESIS

Some people do not believe in presentiments.  They attribute that curious feeling that something unpleasant is going to happen to such mundane causes as liver, or a chill, or the weather.  For my own part, I think there is more in the matter than the casual observer might imagine.

I awoke three days after my meeting with the professor at the club-house, filled with a dull foreboding.  Somehow I seemed to know that that day was going to turn out badly for me.  It may have been liver or a chill, but it was certainly not the weather.  The morning was perfect,—­the most glorious of a glorious summer.  There was a haze over the valley and out to sea which suggested a warm noon, when the sun should have begun the serious duties of the day.  The birds were singing in the trees and breakfasting on the lawn, while Edwin, seated on one of the flower-beds, watched them with the eye of a connoisseur.  Occasionally, when a sparrow hopped in his direction, he would make a sudden spring, and the bird would fly away to the other side of the lawn.  I had never seen Edwin catch a sparrow.  I believe they looked on him as a bit of a crank, and humoured him by coming within springing distance, just to keep him amused.  Dashing young cock-sparrows would show off before their particular hen-sparrows, and earn a cheap reputation for dare-devilry by going within so many years of Edwin’s lair, and then darting away.  Bob was in his favourite place on the gravel.  I took him with me down to the Cob to watch me bathe.

“What’s the matter with me to-day, Robert, old son?” I asked him, as I dried myself.

He blinked lazily, but contributed no suggestion.

“It’s no good looking bored,” I went on, “because I’m going to talk about myself, however much it bores you.  Here am I, as fit as a prize-fighter, living in the open air for I don’t know how long, eating good plain food—­bathing every morning—­sea-bathing, mind you—­and yet what’s the result?  I feel beastly.”

Bob yawned, and gave a little whine.

“Yes,” I said, “I know I’m in love.  But that can’t be it, because I was in love just as much a week ago, and I felt all right then.  But isn’t she an angel, Bob?  Eh?  Isn’t she?  And didn’t you feel bucked when she patted you?  Of course you did.  Anybody would.  But how about Tom Chase?  Don’t you think he’s a dangerous man?  He calls her by her Christian name, you know, and behaves generally as if she belonged to him.  And then he sees her every day, while I have to trust to meeting her at odd times, and then I generally feel such a fool I can’t think of anything to talk about except golf and the weather.  He probably sings duets with her after dinner, and you know what comes of duets after dinner.”

Here Bob, who had been trying for some time to find a decent excuse for getting away, pretended to see something of importance at the other end of the Cob, and trotted off to investigate it, leaving me to finish dressing by myself.