Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/55

 would open and engulf him; and the look did not belie his momentary feeling. But he had a spirit more easily angered than abased, and the brown flush which swept him from collar to cap was not one of unmixed embarrassment.

"How should I know?" he cried in a voice shrill with indignation.

"He seems to know more about it than he'll say," observed Mulberry, and with another wink he fastened his red eyes on Jan, who had his cap pulled over his eyes as usual, and arms akimbo for the want of trousers pockets. "Just the cut of a jock!" added Mulberry, in quite a complimentary murmur.

"You're an ugly blackguard," shouted Jan, "and I wonder anybody can stand and listen to you!"

It was at this point that Heriot appeared very suddenly upon the scene, took the intruder by either shoulder, and had him out of the quad in about a second; in another Heriot rejoined the group in the sun, with a pale face and flashing spectacles.

"You're quite right," he said sharply to Jan. "I wonder, too—at every one of you—at every one!"

And he turned on his heel and was gone, leaving them stinging with his scorn; and Jan would have given a finger from his hand to have gone as well without more words; but he found himself hemmed in by clenched fists and furious faces, his back to the green iron palings under the study windows.

"You saw Heriot coming!"

"You said that to suck up to him!"

"The beastly cheek, for a beastly new man!"

"But we saw through it, and so did he!"

"Trust old Heriot! You don't find that sort o' thing pay with him."