Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/68

 "Won't I!"

"Why should you?"

"I never wanted to come here, for one thing."

"You'll like it well enough, now you are here."

"I hate it!"

"Only to begin with; lots of chaps do at first."

"I always shall. I never wanted to come here; it wasn't my doing, I can tell you."

Evan stared, but did not laugh; he was now studiously kind in look and word, and yet there was something about both that strangely angered Jan. Look and word, in fact, were alike instinctively measured, and the kindness perfunctory if not exactly condescending. There was, to be sure, no conscious reminder, on Evan's part, of past inequality; and yet there was just as little to show that in their new life Evan was prepared to treat Jan as an equal; nay, on their former footing he had been far more friendly. If his present manner augured anything, he was to be neither the friend nor the foe of Jan's extreme hopes and fears. And the unforseen mean was not the less confusing and exasperating because Jan was confused and exasperated without at the time quite knowing why.

"You needn't think it was because you were here," he added suddenly, aggressively—"because I thought you were at Winchester."

"I didn't flatter myself," retorted Evan. "But, as a matter of fact, I should be there if I hadn't got a scholarship here."

"So I suppose," said Jan.

"And yet I'm in the form below you!"

Evan was once more openly amused at this, and perhaps not so secretly annoyed as he imagined.

"I know," said Jan. "That wasn't my fault, either, I doubt they've placed me far too high."