e sat quite still, staring straight before him. He knew that his
friend was ruffling eagle pinions for a flight in which he could never
hope to follow, and somehow his heart ached, for he knew that this must
be the beginning of the end of the dear, delightful friendship of the
year past.

CHAPTER 22

And so ended Myles Falworth's boyhood. Three years followed, during
which he passed through that state which immediately follows boyhood in
all men's lives--a time when they are neither lads nor grown men, but
youths passing from the one to the other period through what is often an
uncouth and uncomfortable age.

He had fancied, when he talked with Gascoyne in the Eyry that time,
that he was to become a man all at once; he felt just then that he had
forever done with boyish things. But that is not the way it happens in
men's lives. Changes do not come so suddenly and swiftly as that, but by
little and little. For three or four days, maybe, he went his new way of
life big with the great change that had come upon him, and then, now
in this and now in that, he drifted back very much into his old ways
of boyish doings. As was said, one's young days do not end all at once,
even when they be so suddenly and sharply shaken, and Myles was not
different from others. He had been stirred to the core by that first
wonderful sight of the great and glorious life of manhood opening before
him, but he had yet many a sport to enjoy, many a game to play, many a
boisterous romp to riot in the dormitory, many an expedition to make
to copse and spinney and river on days when he was off duty, and when
permission had been granted.

Nevertheless, there was a great and vital change in his life; a change
which he hardly felt or realized. Even in resuming his old life there
was no longer the same vitality, the same zest, the same enjoyment in
all these things. It seemed as though they were no longer a part of
himself. The savor had gone from them, and by-and-by it was pleasanter
to sit looking on at the sports and the games of the younger lads than
to take active part in them.

These three years of his life that had thus passed had been very full;
full mostly of work, grinding and monotonous; of training dull, dry,
laborious. For Sir James Lee was a taskmaster as hard as iron and
seemingly as cold as a stone. For two, perhaps for three, weeks Myles
entered into his new exercises with all the enthusiasm that novelty
brings; but these exercis