ou should see yourself as you are for
once in your life--you'll forget it all again soon enough. I'm not
saying it's only you--it's the lot of you--idle, worthless, snobbish,
empty, useless. Help you? No! You can go to your father yourself and
think yourself lucky if he will speak to you."

Mary stopped for lack of breath. Of course, he couldn't know that
she'd been attacking herself as much as him, that, had it not been for
that scene three days ago, she would never have spoken at all.

"I say!" he said quietly, "is it really as bad as that? Am I that sort
of chap?"

"Yes. You know it now at least."

"It's not quite fair. I am only like the rest. I----"

"Yes, but why should you be? Fancy being proud that you are like the
rest! One of a crowd!"

They turned up the road to her house, and she began to relent when she
saw that he was not angry.

"No," he said, nodding his head slowly, "I expect you're about right,
Mary. Things have been happening lately that have made everything
different--I've been thinking ... I see my father differently...."

Then, "How could you?" she cried. "_You_ to cut him and turn him out?
Oh! Robin! you weren't always that sort----"

"No," he answered. "I wasn't once. In Germany I was different--when I
got away from things--but it's harder here"--and then again
slowly--"But am I really as bad as that, Mary?"

Sudden compunction seized her. What right had she to speak to him?
After all, he was only a boy, and she was every bit as bad herself.

"Oh! I don't know!" she said wearily. "I'm all out of sorts to-night,
Robin. We're neither of us fit to speak to him, and you've treated him
badly, all of you--I oughtn't to have spoken as I did, perhaps; but
here we are! You'd better forget it, and another day I'll tell you
some of the nice things about you----"

"Am I that sort of chap?" he said again, staring in front of him with
his hand on the gate. She said good-night and left him standing in the
road. He turned up the hill, with his head bent. He was scarcely
surprised and not at all angry. It only seemed the climax to so many
things that had happened lately--"a snob"--"a pretty poor thing"--"You
don't work, you learn to choose your waistcoat-buttons"--that was the
kind of chap he was. And his father: "One of the finest men there
is----" He'd missed his chance, perhaps, he would never get it again!
But he would try!

He passed into the garden and fumbled for