When the last day of term came he and Rose arranged by which train they should come back, so that they might meet at the station and have tea in the town before returning to school. Philip went home with a heavy heart. He thought of Rose all through the holidays, and his fancy was active with the things they would do together next term. He was bored at the vicarage, and when on the last day his uncle put him the usual question in the usual facetious tone:
“Well, are you glad to be going back to school?”
Philip answered joyfully.
“Rather.”
In order to be sure of meeting Rose at the station he took an earlier train than he usually did, and he waited about the platform for an hour. When the train came in from Faversham, where he knew Rose had to change, he ran along it excitedly. But Rose was not there. He got a porter to tell him when another train was due, and he waited; but again he was disappointed; and he was cold and hungry, so he walked, through side-streets and slums, by a short cut to the school. He found Rose in the study, with his feet on the chimney-piece, talking eighteen to the dozen with half a dozen boys who were sitting on whatever there was to sit on. He shook hands with Philip enthusiastically, but Philip’s face fell, for he realised that Rose had forgotten all about their appointment.
“I say, why are you so late?” said Rose. “I thought you were never coming.”
“You were at the station at half-past four,” said another boy. “I saw you when I came.”
Philip blushed a little. He did not want Rose to know that he had been such a fool as to wait for him.
“I had to see about a friend of my people’s,” he invented readily. “I was asked to see her off.”
But his disappointment made him a little sulky. He sat in silence, and when spoken to answered in monosyllables. He was making up his mind to have it out with Rose when they were alone. But when the others had gone Rose at once came over and sat on the arm of the chair in which Philip was lounging.
“I say, I’m jolly glad we’re in the same study this term. Ripping, isn’t it?”
He seemed so genuinely pleased to see Philip that Philip’s annoyance vanished. They began as if they had not been separated for five minutes to talk eagerly of the thousand things that interested them.
XIX
At first Philip had been too grateful for Rose’s friendship to make any demands on him. He took things as they came and enjoyed life. But presently he began to resent Rose’s universal amiability; he wanted a more exclusive attachment, and he claimed as a right what before he had accepted as a favour. He watched jealously Rose’s companionship with others; and though he knew it was unreasonable could not help sometimes saying bitter things to him. If Rose spent an hour playing the fool in another study, Philip would receive him when he returned to his own with a sullen frown. He would sulk for a day, and he suffered more because Rose either did not notice his ill-humour or deliberately ignored it. Not seldom Philip, knowing all the time how stupid he was, would force a quarrel, and they would not speak to one another for a couple of days. But Philip could not bear to be angry with him long, and even when convinced that he was in the right, would apologise humbly. Then for a week they would be as great friends as ever. But the best was over, and Philip could see that Rose often walked with him merely from old habit or from fear of his anger; they had not so much to say to one another as at first, and Rose was often bored. Philip felt that his lameness began to irritate him.
Towards the end of the term two or three boys caught scarlet fever, and there was much talk of sending them all home in order to escape an epidemic; but the sufferers were isolated, and since no more were attacked it was supposed that the outbreak was stopped. One of the stricken was Philip. He remained in hospital through the Easter holidays, and at the beginning of the summer term was sent home to the vicarage to get a little fresh air. The Vicar, notwithstanding medical assurance that the boy was no longer infectious, received him with suspicion; he thought it very inconsiderate of the doctor to suggest that his nephew’s convalescence should be spent by the seaside, and consented to have him in the house only because there was nowhere else he could go.
Philip went back to school at half-term. He had forgotten the quarrels he had had with Rose, but remembered only that he was his greatest friend. He knew that he had been silly. He made up his mind to be more reasonable. During his illness Rose had sent him in a couple of little notes, and he had ended each with the words: “Hurry up and come back.” Philip thought Rose must be looking forward as much to his return as he was himself to seeing Rose.
He found that owing to the death from scarlet fever of one of the boys in the Sixth there had been some shifting in the studies and Rose was no longer in his. It was a bitter disappointment. But as soon as he arrived he burst into Rose’s study. Rose was sitting at his desk, working with a boy called Hunter, and turned round crossly as Philip came in.
“Who the devil’s that?” he cried. And then, seeing Philip: “Oh, it’s you.”
Philip stopped in embarrassment.
“I thought I’d come in and see how you were.”
“We were just working.”
Hunter broke into the conversation.
“When did you get back?”
“Five minutes ago.”
They sat and looked at him as though he was disturbing them. They evidently expected him to go quickly. Philip reddened.
“I’ll be off. You might look in when you’ve done,” he said to Rose.
“All right.”
Philip closed the door behind him and limped back to his own study. He felt frightfully hurt. Rose, far from seeming glad to see him, had looked almost put out. They might never have been more than acquaintances. Though he waited in his study, not leaving it for a moment in case just then Rose should come, his friend never appeared; and next morning when he went in to prayers he saw Rose and Hunter singing along arm in arm. What he could not see for himself others told him. He had forgotten that three months is a long time in a schoolboy’s life, and though he had passed them in solitude Rose had lived in the world. Hunter had stepped into the vacant place. Philip found that Rose was quietly avoiding him. But he was not the boy to accept a situation without putting it into words; he waited till he was sure Rose was alone in his study and went in.
“May I come in?” he asked.
Rose looked at him with an embarrassment that made him angry with Philip.
“Yes, if you want to.”
“It’s very kind of you,” said Philip sarcastically.
“What d’you want?”
“I say, why have you been so rotten since I came back?”
“Oh, don’t be an ass,” said Rose.
“I don’t know what you see in Hunter.”
“That’s my business.”
Philip looked down. He could not bring himself to say what was in his heart. He was afraid of humiliating himself. Rose got up.
“I’ve got to go to the Gym,” he said.
When he was at the door Philip forced himself to speak.
“I say, Rose, don’t be a perfect beast.”
“Oh, go to hell.”
Rose slammed the door behind him and left Philip alone. Philip shivered with rage. He went back to his study and turned the conversation over in his mind. He hated Rose now, he wanted to hurt him, he thought of biting things he might have said to him. He brooded over the end to their friendship and fancied that others were