l tableau. And the pair managed it triumphantly,
and were the very first to get out at the head of the crowd, to Philip's
immense amusement and John Tatham's great relief. The elder hurried the
younger into the first hansom, all in the twinkling of an eye: and then
for the first time his gravity relaxed. Philip took it all for a great
joke till they reached Ebury Street. But when his companion left him,
and he had time to think of it, he began to ask himself why?

CHAPTER XLII.

I will not say that Philip's sleep was broken by this question, but it
undoubtedly recurred to his mind the first thing in the morning when he
jumped out of bed very late for breakfast, and the events of the past
night and the lateness of the hour at which he got to rest came back
upon him as excuses in the first place for his tardiness. And then,
which was remarkable, it was not the scene in the play in which he had
been most interested which came to his mind, but a vision of that box
and the man standing in front of it staring at him through the black
tubes of the opera-glass which came before Philip like a picture. Uncle
John had said it was at the ladies behind, but the boy felt sure it was
no lady behind, but himself, on whom that stare was fixed. Who would
care to stare so at him? It faintly gleamed across his thoughts that it
might be some one who had heard of the scholarship, but he dismissed
that thought instantly with a blush. It also gleamed upon him with
equal vagueness like a momentary but entirely futile light, consciously
derived from story books, and of which he was much ashamed, that the
inexplicable attention given to himself might have something to do with
the girl who had such keen eyes. Philip blushed fiery red at this
involuntary thought, and chased it from his mind like a mad dog; but he
could not put away the picture of the box, the girl putting aside the
curtain to look at him, and the opera-glass fixed upon his face. And
then why was Uncle John in such a hurry to get away? It had seemed a
capital joke at that moment, but when he came to think of it, it was
rather strange that a man who might be Solicitor-General to-morrow if
he liked, and probably Lord Chancellor in a few years, should make a
schoolboy rush from the stalls of a theatre with the object of being
first out. Philip disapproved of so undignified a step on the part of
his elderly relation. And he saw now in the serious morning that Uncle
John was ver