peerless creature would not hesitate as to who should be her guide for
life.

It was while he was thus roaming about in a state of great excitement
and a subdued ecstasy of anticipation, that he encountered Jock, who had
not been enjoying himself at all. At this great entertainment Jock had
been considered a boy, and no more. Even as a boy, had he danced there
might have been some notice taken of him, but he was incapable in this
way, and in no other could he secure any attention. At a party of a
graver kind there were often people who were well enough pleased to talk
to Jock, and from men who owed allegiance to his school a boy who had
distinguished himself and done credit to the old place was always sure
of notice. But then, though high up in Sixth Form, and capable of any
eminence in Greek verse, he was nobody; while a fellow like Montjoie,
who had never got beyond the rank of lower boy, was in the front of
affairs, the admired of all admirers, Bice's chosen partner and
companion. The mind develops with a bound when it has gone through such
an experience. Jock stood with his back against the wall, and watched
everything from under his eyebrows. Sometimes there was a glimmer as of
moisture in those eyes, half veiled under eyelids heavily curved and
puckered with wrath and pain, for he was very young, not much more than
a child, notwithstanding his manhood. But what with a keenness of
natural sight, and what with the bitter enlightening medium of that
moisture, Jock saw the reality of the scene more clearly than Mr.
Derwentwater, roaming about in his dream of anticipation, self-deceived,
was capable of doing. He caught sight of Jock in his progress, and,
though it was this sentiment which had separated them, its natural
effect was also to throw them together. MTutor paused and took up a
position by his pupil's side. "What a foolish scene considered
philosophically," he said; "and yet how many human interests in
solution, and floating adumbrations of human fate! I have been dancing,"
Mr. Derwentwater continued, with some solemnity and a full sense of the
superior position involved, "with, I verily believe, the most beautiful
creature in the world."

Jock looked up, fixing him with a critical, slightly cynical regard. He
had been well aware of Mr. Derwentwater's very ineffective performance,
and divined too clearly the sentiments of Bice not to feel all a
spectator's derision for this uncalled-for self-complacency; bu