wn that she had
lied, he couldn't very well have given it against poor pretty Peggy who
had lost her head and got frightened.

As Nicky packed up his clothes and his books he said, "I don't care if I
am sent down. It would have been fifty times worse for her than it
is for me."

He had no idea how bad it was, nor how much worse it was going to be.
For it ended in his going that night from his father's house to the
house in St. John's Wood where Vera and Mr. Lawrence Stephen lived.

And it was there that he met Desmond.

* * * * *

Nicky congratulated himself on having pulled it off so well. At the
same time he was a little surprised at the ease with which he had taken
his father and mother in. He might have understood it if he had known
that Vera had been before him, and that she had warned them long ago
that this was precisely the sort of thing they would have to look out
for. And as no opinion ever uttered on the subject of their children was
likely to be forgotten by Frances and Anthony, when this particular
disaster came they were more prepared for it than they would have
believed possible.

But there were two members of his family whom Nicky had failed
altogether to convince, Michael and Dorothy. Michael luckily, Nicky said
to himself, was not on the spot, and his letter had no weight against
the letters of the Master and the Professor, and on this also Nicky had
calculated. He reckoned without Dorothy, judging it hardly likely that
she would be allowed to know anything about it. Nobody, not even
Frances, was yet aware of Dorothy's importance.

And Dorothy, because of her importance, blamed herself for all that
happened afterwards. If she had not had that damned Suffrage meeting,
Rosalind would not have stayed to dinner; if Rosalind had not stayed to
dinner she would not have gone with her to the tram-lines; if she had
not gone with her to the tram-lines she would have been at home to stop
Nicky from going to St. John's Wood. As it was, Nicky had reached the
main road at the top of the lane just as Dorothy was entering it from
the bottom.

At first Frances did not want Dorothy to see her father. He was most
horribly upset and must not be disturbed. But Dorothy insisted. Her
father had the letters, and she must see the letters.

"I may understand them better than you or Daddy," she said. "You see,
Mummy, I know these Cambridge people. They're awful asses, some
of them."