LITMIR.BIZ

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said C. J. in a hard voice. His heart had smitten him.

      "Well, you'd made me give up the idea of St. Crispin's, you know. Don't look like that – it's just as well you did. Only I hadn't it to think about in the night. I missed it."

      He shut his eyes: he had been thinking of St. Crispin's, but not in the old way, no longer as within his reach. Ideals are not shattered so easily by hearsay, and St. Crispin's was heaven to Kenyon still, though now he might not enter in. Well, one would rather never get there than find heaven imperfect too. And Kenyon, had he been older, would have appreciated his blessedness in being permitted to lay down this ideal unsubstantiated and as good as new; for not C. J., but experience only, could have razed so solid a castle in the air; C. J. had only lifted the drawbridge against Kenyon forever.

      But Forrester was thinking of the night before.

      "My dear fellow, you speak as though school were the only thing you had to live for!"

      "Well, it was the thing I wanted to get better for," replied Kenyon, frankly; "one of the things anyhow. Of course I want to be up and out here as well. I love this dear old place!"

      "Do you want to get strong only for your own sake?" Forrester could not help saying, gently. "Do you never think of Ethel, of your father? I am sure you do!"

      Kenyon coloured.

      "Don't, old fellow! It's hard to think of anybody but yourself when you're laid up in bed for weeks and weeks. But Ethel knows that I do sometimes think about her; and that reminds me, C. J.; I was going to ask you to play tennis with her, or take her out for a ride, or something. She wants to come out of her shell. And then the governor, he's so decent to me now, of course I'd like to get better for his sake too. I think he'd make less fuss about the windows now – I'd like to break another and see! But it's no good pretending I'm as sorry for them as for myself, I can't be."

      "You are very honest," said Forrester, looking kindly into the great bright eyes. "I wish all my fellows were as brave and honest as you!"

      "I'm not so brave. You don't know what I've gone through up here alone in the night, apart from the pain. I've been thinking about – it. C. J., I don't know, now, that I'm going to get better at all. I pray to, and I try to, but I don't know that I am. I say, don't hook it! I daren't say it very loud. You're the first I've said it to at all. It only came to me last night … and it does seem hard lines. Look at the sun! With the window open like this, and your eyes shut, it's almost as good as lying out on the grass. Dear old place!.. Why have you hooked it? What are you looking out of the window for? They can't be coming yet!"

      But they were, as it happened, though that was not why Forrester had risen; nor had he answered when Kenyon heard the wheels.

      "What a bother, C. J.! There was something else I meant to tell you; must you scoot? Then come up after the umpires have been, and tell me what they say – yourself. You sha'n't go till you promise!"

      VI

      When C. J. returned, the sun shone into the room no more; it was afternoon.

      Kenyon was very white.

      "Well?"

      "Kenyon, they don't know!"

      "But they're still in the house. Why haven't they gone? What are they waiting for? Tell me, C. J. You said you'd tell me!"

      "Poor old Kenyon – dear old fellow!" faltered Forrester. "I promised to tell you, I know I did, and downstairs they've asked me to. Now you'll never feel it, Kenyon. They're going to do something which may make you better. You – you'll be put to sleep – you'll never feel a thing!"

      "When is it to be?"

      "This afternoon – very soon."

      Kenyon drew a hard breath.

      "You've got to be in the room, C. J.!"

      "Very well, if they will let me. But you'll never know, Kenyon – you'll know nothing at all about it!"

      "They must let you. You've got to hold my hand right through, whether I feel anything or not. See?"

      "My dear boy! My brave old fellow!"

      "It's a bargain?"

      "I'd better go and ask them now."

      "Hold on a bit. How you do like to do a bolt! I wish this hadn't come so soon … there was so much I'd got to tell you … all what I thought of in the night. You know the game we had, the night before you went, last summer? John would call it Gentlemen and Players; poor old John! I remember every bit of it – especially that leg-hit. It was sweet!. Well, when Ethel got run out, and our side lost – ah! I thought you'd remember – I played the fool, and you told me not to grumble at the umpire's decision. You said life was like cricket, and I mustn't dispute the umpire, but go out grinning – "

      "I didn't mean that, Kenyon! You know I didn't! I never thought – "

      "Perhaps not, but I did in the night; and I'm thinking of it now, C. J., I'm thinking of nothing else!"

      VII

      Kenyon had rallied: nearly a week had passed. It had done no good, but it had not killed him.

      The afternoon was hot, and still, and golden. The window of Kenyon's room was wide open; it had been wide open every day. Below, on the court beyond the drive, Forrester and Ethel were playing at playing a single. Kenyon had rallied so surprisingly, and had himself begged them to play. He could not hear them, he was asleep; it was a pity; but he was sleeping continually. Mr. Harwood sat by Kenyon in the deep arm-chair. He had sent the nurse to lie down in her room. The afternoon, though brilliant, was still and oppressive.

      How long he slept! Mr. Harwood seldom took his eyes from the smooth white forehead, whiter than usual under its thatch of brown hair. It was damp also, and the hair clung to it. Mr. Harwood would smooth back the hair, and actually not wake Kenyon with the sponge. His untrained fingers were grown incredibly light and tender. He would stand for minutes when he had done this, gazing down on the pale young face with the long brown locks and lashes. They were Kenyon's mother's eyelashes, as long and as dark. When Mr. Harwood raised his eyes from the boy, it was to gaze at her photograph on the screen. Kenyon in his sleep was extremely like her. The eyes in the portrait were downcast a little; they seemed to rest on Kenyon, to beckon him.

      The voices of Ethel and Forrester, never loud, were audible all the time. And Mr. Harwood was glad to hear them. He did not want those two up here. He would not have Forrester up here any more; only Kenyon would. It was Forrester who had held the child's unconscious hand during the operation, and until Kenyon became sensible, when "C. J." was the first sound he uttered. There had been too much Forrester all through, much too much since the operation. It was Kenyon's doing, and Kenyon must have all his wishes now. It was not Forrester's fault. Mr. Harwood knew this, and hated Kenyon's friend the more bitterly for the feeling that another man would have loved him.

      How Kenyon slept! How strange, how shallow, his breath seemed all at once! Mr. Harwood rose again, and again smoothed the long hair back from the forehead. The forehead glistened: and this time Kenyon awoke. There was a dim unseeing look in his eyes. He held out a hand, and Mr. Harwood grasped it, dropping on his knees beside the bed.

      "Stick to my hand. Never let go again. Remember what you told me? I do – I'm thinking of it now!"

      Mr. Harwood did not remember telling him any one thing. He was kneeling with his back to the window. Kenyon's sentences had come with long intervals between them, and accompanied by the most loving glances his father had ever received from him. The father's heart throbbed violently. Perhaps he realised that his boy was dying; he was more acutely conscious that Kenyon and he were alone together, and that childish love and trust had come at last into the dear, dying eyes. He had striven so hard to win this look – had longed for it of late with so mighty a longing! And at the last it was his. What else was there to grasp?

      Kenyon began to murmur indistinctly – about cricket – about getting out. Mr. Harwood leant closer to catch the words, and to drink deeper while he could of the dim loving eyes. But there came suddenly a change of expression. Kenyon was silent.

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