go into the Special for a
time, and how pleasant it would be suddenly to behold Alan's entrance
into his class, so that, without unduly attracting attention, he could
manage to secure a desk for Alan next to himself.

But when Michael and Alan (now again the austere Fane and Merivale) went
back to school, Michael was in the Middle Fourth, and Alan just missed
the double remove and inherited Michael's scrabbled desk in the Shell.

Chapter III: _Pastoral_

The new term opened inauspiciously; for Miss Carthew fell ill again more
seriously, and Michael's mother came back, seeming cross and worried.
She settled that, as she could not stay at home for long, Michael must
be a boarder for a year. Michael did not at all like this idea, and
begged that Nancy might come and look after him. But Mrs. Fane told him
not to make everything more difficult than it was already by grumbling
and impossible suggestions. Michael was overcome by his mother's
crossness and said no more. Mrs. Fane announced her intention of
shutting up the house in Carlington Road and of coming back in the
summer to live permanently at home, when Michael would be able to be a
day-boy again. Mrs. Fane seemed injured all the time she had to spend in
making arrangements for Michael to go to Mr. Wheeler's House. She wished
that people would not get ill just when it was most inconvenient. She
could not understand why everything happened at exactly the wrong
moment, and she was altogether different from the tranquil and lovely
lady whom Michael had hitherto known. However, the windows of Number 64
were covered with newspapers, the curtain-poles were stripped bare, the
furniture stood heaped in the middle of rooms under billowy sheets, and
Michael drove up with all his luggage to the gaunt boarding-house of Mr.
Wheeler that overlooked the School ground.

Michael knew that the alteration in his status would make a great
difference. Long ago he remembered how his friendship with Buckley had
been finally severed by the breaking up of Buckley's home and the
collapse of all Buckley's previous opinions. Michael now found himself
in similar case. To be sure, there was not at St. James' the same icy
river of prejudice between boarders and day-boys which divided them so
irreparably at Randell's. Nevertheless, it was impossible for a boarder
to preserve unspoilt a real intimacy with a day-boy. To begin with, all
sorts of new rules about streets being in and out of bo