“I wasn’t really being serious.”

“I think you were.”

“Well, all right then, I was. You see how it is, Griselda. People think you expect the very best of everything—”

“Then people don’t know.”

“Your father is a very rich man—”

“For Salterton. I expect really rich people sneer at him and ask him to carry their bags.”

“But it isn’t just money. You look as if you expected a great deal.”

“Can I help the way I look?”

“You’d be out of your mind if you wanted to. You know that you’re beautiful, don’t you?”

“I’m beautiful about on the scale that Daddy’s rich—for Salterton.”

“But it’s more than your looks. You have the air of one who wants rather special things, and special people.”

“Of course I do. But I also want all sorts of things and all sorts of people.”

“Me among them? Thanks.”

“You’re very special.”

“Oh? Well, thanks again.”

“Don’t be difficult, Solly. I have to be myself. I suppose that by all the rules of what people expect I should be a loud-laughing, bug-eyed, silly little mutt at eighteen, but I’m not. I feel quite calm and collected most of the time. I’m an oddity, I suppose. Like you.”

“What’s so odd about me?”

“You don’t need to be told. It’s not just that you have brains. It’s that you seem to have a skin less than other people. People like Nellie Forrester abrade you. And when you snarl at them most people think it’s superiority, but I know that it’s because they sin against something you hold very dear. I’ve known you for years in a kind of way, Solly. I want to know you, really and truly. So promise me that if you feel like talking to me, you’ll say so?”

“Of course I will, Griselda darling.” Solly was so touched by her understanding of him that he had quite forgotten about his mother. So touched indeed, that he took Griselda in his arms and kissed her, with an admirable mixture of friendliness and gallantry.

It was at this moment that a thin and watery beam of light swept across the dewy grass and fell upon them, and Freddy’s voice was heard to say “Aha!” in melodramatic accents.

“Freddy, go back to bed and stop Ahaing like Hawkshaw the Detective.”

Freddy said “Aha!” again, with marked relish.

“Freddy, you are behaving like the comic kid sister in a cheap farce,” cried Solly. He and Griselda, hand in hand, ran across the lawn and stood under Freddy’s window.

“You keep your hooks out of Solly,” said Freddy, from above. “He’s for me, if I decide not to be a nun.”

“You have entirely misunderstood the situation,” said Solly. “I was paying a compliment to your sister’s intellect and discernment, and not what you think.”

“Boloney,” cried Freddy; “Gristle has a gob of pink goo where her brain should be, and you know it. I’m glad I had my big flashlight. You looked just like a love-scene in a cheap movie.”

“Remind me when we meet to lecture you on the proper use of coarseness in repartee,” said Solly. “And now, I really must go home.”

Griselda drove him home, and he kissed her again before he got out of her car, and promised to see her often.

His key seemed to make a shattering noise in the lock. And when he entered the hall, which was in darkness, maternal solicitude and pique embraced him like the smell of cooking cabbage. He crept upstairs and there, as he knew it would be, was the light coming from his mother’s half-open door. There was nothing else for it, so he braced himself to be a good son.

“Still awake, mother?” he said, looking in.

“Oh, there you are, lovey. I was beginning to worry. Come in.”

With her teeth out and her hair in a pigtail his mother looked much older that she did in the daytime. On the counterpane lay The Asiatic Enigma. Solly sat at the end of the bed, noting as he did so that she had her maternal expression on, the one which was reserved for him alone. Gone was the formality and irony of the dining-table; this was Mother, alone with her Boy.

“What kept you so long?”

“It was a long meeting. We had a lot of details to clear up.”

“At this hour? Surely not.”

“Well, afterward a few of us went for a short drive to clear our heads.”

“That must have been very pleasant. Who drove?”

“Griselda Webster.”

“I see. You weren’t going too fast, I hope?”

“No, no; quite slowly.”

“Who else was with you?”

“Oh, Valentine Rich was one. She’s very nice.”

“Yes, I’m sure all these girls you meet are very nice, but there’s always one at home, lovey, isn’t there—waiting till whatever time it maybe.”

“Yes, of course, mother; you’re the pick of the lot. But it’s only half-past twelve, you know.”

“Really? It seemed later. But since I’ve been ill, I find the nights very long.”

“Then you must go to sleep at once, dear.”

Solly kissed his mother, and went to the door.

“Lovey?”

“Yes, mother?”

There’s something on your mouth, dear—something that tastes rather like scent. Something you have been eating, I suppose. Wash it off, dear.”

Hector’s good sense and caution prevented him from any premature rejoicing on the strength of his tactical victory at Nellie Forrester’s. He knew that Nellie and Vambrace and those who comprised the artistic element in the Little Theatre were not pleased that he should wish to act, although he was not aware how deep their opposition went or from what it sprang. There is always resentment when a beast of burden shows a desire to prance and paw the air in the company of horses trained in the haute école, and to Nellie and her friends Hector’s ambition seemed no less pitiable than presumptuous. His superiority in the box office was freely admitted; his generalship in the annual drive to sell subscription tickets and memberships for the Little Theatre was the subject of a generously worded vote of thanks at every annual meeting; his insistence upon issuing a pink slip of authorization every time it was necessary to buy something for the plays was tolerated, because it saved a great deal of money and prevented Larry Pye from running up ruinous bills at lumber yards and electrical supply houses. He had the respect of the whole Little Theatre so long as he remained its business genius, and by applying some simple rules of business to an organization which was made up of unbusinesslike people he had achieved a reputation for fiscal wizardry. But when he expressed a desire to act, it suddenly appeared to those who admired him as a treasurer that he was a graceless dolt, intolerable in the world of high art in which they moved. Such sudden reverses of opinion are not uncommon when a man seeks to change his role in the world.

Hector knew that his battle was not quite won. Nevertheless he allowed himself to say to his colleague Mr Adams, the head of the English Department, when they met in the teachers’ commonroom, “I hope you’ll be in town in late June?”

“Yes, I will,” said Adams. “Why?”

“The Little Theatre are going to do The Tempest; I thought you’d be interested.”

“Yes, of course. That’s very ambitious. Are they going to be able to get together a strong cast?”

“Yes, I think so. Though perhaps I shouldn’t say that for it looks as though I might take a part myself. I hope I won’t be the weakest link in the chain.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” said Adams, who was not really sure at all, and he went on his way reflecting that wonders would never cease, and that if Old Binomial was going to appear, he would certainly not miss the play for anything, as it was sure to yield a few good unintentional laughs. Mr Adams had been an indifferent student of mathematics himself, and had a grudge against Hector because he gave too much homework to his pupils who might otherwise have been writing essays for Mr Adams. But he quickly spread the news that Hector was about to blossom forth as an actor, and the following day the Principal referred to it facetiously when he met Hector in the corridor. And all of this Hector enjoyed greatly, as an old maid might enjoy being twitted about the possession of an admirer.