Caesar owed Scaife thirteen pounds, and the fact that this debt could
not be paid without confession to his father was driving him
distracted. Scaife, it is true, laughed genially at Caesar's distress.
"Settle when you please," he said; "but, for Heaven's sake, don't peach
to your governor! Mine would laugh and pay up; yours will pay up and
make you swear not to touch another card while you're at Harrow."

"Just what he _will_ do," Caesar told John.

"And the best thing that could happen," John said bluntly. "If you
don't cut loose now, it will be much worse next term."

"Rot," Desmond had replied. "I'm paying the usual bill for learning a
difficult game. That's how the Demon puts it. But I've a turn for
bridge, and now I can hold my own. I'm better than Beaumont-Greene,
and quite as good as Lovell. The Demon, of course, is in another
class."

"And therefore he oughtn't to play with you. It's robbery."

"Now you're talking bosh."

The Eton and Harrow match ended in another draw. Time and Scaife's
fielding saved Harrow from defeat. The fact of a draw had
significance. A draw spelled compromise. John had indulged in a
superstitious fancy common enough to persons older than he. "If Harrow
wins," he put it to himself, "Caesar will triumph; if Eton wins, Caesar
will lose." When the match proved a draw, John drew the conclusion
that his pal would "funk" telling the truth; an apprehension presently
confirmed.

"I didn't tell the governor," said Caesar, when John and he met. "My
eldest brother, Hugo, is coming home, and I shall screw it out of him.
He's a good sort, and he's going to marry a girl who is simply rolling.
He'll fork out, I know he will. I feel awfully cheery."

"I don't," said John.

He had good reason to fear that Caesar and he were drifting apart. Now
he worked by himself. And his voice had broken. A small thing this,
but John was sensible that his singing voice touched corners in
Caesar's soul to which his speaking voice never penetrated. More,
Caesar and he had agreed to differ upon points of conscience other than
card-playing. And every point of conscientious difference increases
the distance between true friends in geometrical progression. Poor
Jonathan!

But we have his grateful testimony that Warde stood by him. And Warde
made him see life at Harrow (and beyond) in a new light. Warde,
indeed, decomposed the light into primary colours, a sort of experiment
in moral chem