n the sheets were fibrous and
the mattress was jagged, when the pillow seared him and his eyes were
like sand, what resolutions he made to carry her away from Kensington;
but in the morning how coldly impossible it was to do so at eighteen.

One afternoon coming out of school, Michael met Drake.

"Hullo!" said Drake. "How's the fair Lily? I haven't seen you around
lately."

"Haven't you?" said Michael. "No, I haven't been round so much lately."

He spoke as if he had suddenly noticed he had forgotten something.

"I asked her about you--over the garden-wall; so don't get jealous,"
Drake said with his look of wise rakishness. "And she didn't seem
particularly keen on helping out the conversation. So I supposed you'd
had a quarrel. Funny girl, Lily," Drake went on. "I suppose she's all
right when you know her. Why don't you come in to my place?"

"Thanks," said Michael.

He felt that fate had given him this opportunity. He had not sought it.
He might be able to speak to Lily, and if he could, he would ask her to
meet him, and promises could go to the devil. He determined that no more
of summer's treasure should be wasted.

He had a thrill in Drake's dull drawing-room from the sense of nearness
to Lily, and from the looking-glass room it was back to back with the
more vital drawing-room next door.

Michael could hardly bear to look out of the window into the oblong
gardens; two months away from Lily made almost unendurable the thought
that in one tremulous instant he might be imparadised in the vision of
her reality.

"Hullo! She's there," said Drake from the window. "With another chap."

Michael with thudding heart and flaming cheeks stood close to Drake.

"Naughty girl!" said Drake. "She's flirting."

"I don't think she was," said Michael, but, even as he spoke, the
knowledge that she was tore him to pieces.

Chapter XIX: _Parents_

The brazen sun lighted savagely the barren streets, as Michael left
Trelawny Road behind him. His hopeless footsteps rasped upon the
pavement. His humiliation was complete. Not even was his personality
strong enough to retain the love of a girl for six weeks. Yet he
experienced a morbid sympathy with Lily, so unutterably beneath the rest
of mankind was he already inclined to estimate himself. Stella opened
wide her grey eyes when she greeted his pale disheartened return.

"Feeling ill?" she asked.

"I'm feeling a worthless brute," said Michael, plunging into a dejec