Page:Solo (1924).pdf/47

 the thought that he had yielded again to his besetting sin of showing off.

Paul's resentment of the new knowledge was at its sharpest when he attempted to reconcile it with the image of girls he knew. It made him sorry for nice girls and increased his dislike of horrid ones. He sincerely hoped Aunt Verona didn't know—though, being quite old, she might have found out by some unlucky accident. Of course all married people knew—Paul blushed—and writhed as the faces of Mrs. Dreer and Mrs. Kestrell came before him.

Walter's scheme obliged every creature to submit to or indulge in nastiness, and Walter found in such a predicament a source of glee! Whereas Paul now looked at his girl acquaintances with a haunting pity, as he might watch a lamb going up the path to the butcher, Walter chortled over the prospect of their fate. Not only that, but he kept on the alert for any sign of knowledge on the part of the opposite sex, and was never happier than when he detected Miss Todd coughing over an equivocal word in the Sunday-school lesson. He was highly pleased with himself when he perceived that Mrs. Wilcove was going to have a baby. "You wait and see," he concluded, when Paul refused to take his word for it.

A few days later when Paul called at Mr. Kestrell's workshop to sharpen his knife, he caught a glimpse of Gritty and Myrtle Wilcove in the showroom. Gritty was stuffing coloured tissue-paper into her pinny and presently began to strut about the room like an actor made up for the part of Falstaff. He heard Myrtle giggle, whereupon he suddenly blushed and fled, without waiting to sharpen his knife. A wave of knowledge seemed to have passed over the village like an epidemic. Trust Gritty to catch it!

The blow drove him out into the fields behind Aunt Verona's house. The only secrets left in the whole world