Catiline.

At home Michael much enjoyed his mother's company, although he was now
in the cold dawn of affection for anything save Alan. He no longer was
shocked by his mother's solicitude or demonstrativeness, fearful of
offending against the rigid standards of the private school or the
uncertain position of a new boy at a public school. He yielded
gracefully to his mother's pleasure in his company out of a mixture of
politeness and condescension; but he always felt that when he gave up
for an hour the joys of the world for the cloister of domesticity, he
was conferring a favour. At this period nothing troubled him at all save
his position in the School and the necessity to spend every available
minute with Alan. The uncertainty of his father's position which had
from time to time troubled him was allayed by the zest of existence, and
he never bothered to question his mother at all pertinaciously. In every
way he was making a pleasant pause in his life to enjoy the new emotion
of self-confidence, his distinction in football, his popularity with
contemporaries and seniors and his passion for the absolute
identification of Alan's behaviour with his and his own with Alan's. At
home every circumstance fostered this attitude. Alone with his mother,
Michael was singularly free to do as he liked, and he could always
produce from the past precedents which she was unable to controvert for
any whim he wished to establish as a custom. In any case, Mrs. Fane
seemed to enjoy spoiling him, and Michael was no longer averse from her
praise of his good looks and from the pleasure she expressed in the
company of Alan and himself at a concert or matinee. Another reason for
Michael's nonchalant happiness was his normality. Nowadays he looked at
himself in the old wardrobe that once had power to terrify him with
nocturnal creakings, and no longer did he deplore his thin arms and
legs, no longer did he mark the diffidence of the sensitive small boy.
Now he could at last congratulate himself upon his ability to hold his
own with any of his equals whether with tongue or fist. Now, too, when
he went to bed, he went to bed as serenely as a kitten, curling himself
up to dream of sport with mice. Sometimes Alan on Friday night would
accompany him to spend the week-end at Carlington Road, and when he did
so, the neighbourhood was not allowed to be oblivious of the event. In
the autumnal dusk Michael and he would practise drop-kicks and high
punts i