cial do not judge by appearances," Wilde had said,
mocking at society; and he had been right. Life was a sham, a mass of
muddled evolutions; the world was too slack to find out the truth, or
perhaps it was afraid to discover it. For the truth was not pleasant.
Gordon did not know what it was; all he saw was that life was built of
shams, that no one worshipped anything but the god of things that seem.
He lay supine, cursing at the darkness.

The next morning he woke with the same feeling of depression; he looked
round his dormitory. There were seven of them, all perfectly happy and
contented. And why? Merely because they looked at the surface, because
they did not take the trouble to find out what was true and what was
false. They were happy in their ignorance, and he, too, could be happy
if he just took things as they were. His last few weeks had been so full
of joy, because he had not taken the trouble to think. Thought was the
cause of unhappiness. And yet he had to think. He hated half measures.
For a certain space he had to live on earth, and he wanted to discover
what life really was. What lay beyond the grave he did not know,
"sufficient for the day were the day's evil things." But he felt that he
must try and plumb the depth or shallowness of the day's interests. He
could not bear the idea of a contentment purchased by cowardice.

Yet he had learn from Tester that the soul is man's most sacred
possession, and must not be shown to the crowd; that he must always mask
his true emotions, except in the company of those who could understand
them.

So he went down to breakfast telling Collins the latest joke from _The
London Mail_. On his way back to the studies he ran into a fag.

"Caruthers, Chief wants to see you in his study."

Gordon found the Chief waiting for him.

"You are not busy, I hope, are you, Caruthers?"

"Oh no, sir."

"Well, at any rate, I shall keep you only for a minute. I just wanted to
speak to you for a second before you left. Everything is such a rush on
the last day. I suppose you have found that authority brings a good many
difficulties with it, and I have heard that you have had a row or two.
But I think you have done very well on the whole. I did not say very
much about it at the time, but about two years ago I had very grave
doubts about how you were going to turn out; I must say that I was very
nervous about making you a prefect. But, still, I think your last year
has really develop