Mrs. Warrender did not hear what she said. Always
mean love--Chatty did not say. Various events had suggested this question,
but on the whole she was very glad her mother did not hear.

CHAPTER XIX.

Warrender went off very quickly upon his long walk. He could not but
feel, notwithstanding his little bravado of indifference, that it
was a very important decision, which he had made irrevocable by thus
publishing it. For some time it had been a certainty in his mind; but
nothing seems a certainty until it has been said, and now that it had
been said, the thought that he had absolutely delivered himself over
into the nameless crowd, that he had renounced all further thought of
distinction in the only way he knew of for acquiring it, was somewhat
awful to him. The unimaginable difference which exists between a man
within whose reach a first class is still dangling and him who has no
hope but to be "gulfed," is little comprehensible by the unacademical
mind; but it is one not to be contemplated without a shudder. When he
thought of what he was resigning, when he thought of what he must drop
into, the blood seemed to boil in Theo's veins and to ring in his ears.
To be a passman; to descend among the crowd; to consort with those who
had "pulled through," perhaps with difficulty, who had gone through all
sorts of dull workings and struggles, and to whom their books were
mere necessary instruments of torture, to be got done with as soon as
possible,--these were things terrible to contemplate. And in the silence
of his own soul, it was difficult to console himself with those theories
about the trade-mark, and the merely professional use of academic
distinction. It was all true enough, and yet it was not true. Even now
he thought of his tutor with a pang; not the tutor at college, who had
dropped him for Brunson, but the genial old tutor at school, who had
hoped such great things for him. He said, "Poor old Boreas!" to himself,
sympathising in the disappointment with which the news would be received.
Warrender a passman! Warrender "gulfed"! Nobody would believe it. This
gave him many pangs as he set out upon his walk. He had sacrificed his
early glories to the fastidious fancy of youth; but he had never really
intended to be distanced by Brunson, to fall out of the ranks at the
end.

Softer thoughts began to steal over him as he pursued his way, as he
began to draw near the other country in which she abode. Half-way
be