Bourne's voice had in it a ring of genuine regret, and whilst I could almost have smiled at his unaffectedly tragic tone, I could see the vista which his resolution opened up. I heard the school shouting at Bourne to let the finest player out of the eleven in, and all the shouting would be across "seas of misunderstanding." I know Bourne saw the difficulties himself, and he left my study soon after with a rather anxious look on his face. Personally I determined not to think about the matter until I had seen Aspinall. From the very first I had never expected any help from Acton. There was something about the whole of his bearing in the caddish business that told me plainly that we would have to treat him, not as a fellow who had been betrayed to a vile action by a beastly temper and was bitterly sorry for it, but as a fellow who hated us for finding it out. I saw Aspinall two days later, and as we walked towards the station I broached the matter. "Certainly; I thought he tripped me, but he has written me and said how sorry he was for my accident, so, of course, it rests there." "Candidly, Aspinall, have you any doubt yourself?" "No, old fellow. I'm sorry, but I really think he tripped me. He was riled at a little hustling from Shannon's lot, and I may have upset him myself occasionally. But it is a small matter." I looked at the bandages across his cheek, and I didn't think it small. "But, Aspinall, even if we leave you out of the business, it isn't a small matter for us, especially for Bourne." "Well, no; hardly for you," he admitted. "'Twas a piece of sheer bad form. It shouldn't be done at our place at all." "If you were in Bourne's place would you bar him his place in the eleven?" Aspinall considered a full minute. "On the whole, I think I should--at least, for one term; but I'd most certainly let him know why he was not to have his cap--privately, of course. I should not like it to get about, and I do not fancy Acton will say much about it." That night Bourne and I crossed over to Biffen's, and waylaid Acton in his den. I'm pretty sure there wasn't another room like his in the whole school. No end of swell pictures--foreign mostly; lovely little books, which, I believe, were foreign also; an etching of his own place up in Yorkshire; carpets, and rugs, and little statuettes--swagger through and through; a little too much so, I believe, for the rules, but Biffen evidently had not put his foot down. Acton was standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, and on seeing us he politely offered us chairs with the air of a gentleman and a something of grace, which was a trifle foreign. I saw that Acton's polite cordiality nettled Bourne more than a little, but he solemnly took a chair, and in his blunt, downright fashion, plunged headlong into the business. "Only came to say a word or two, Acton, about Thursday's match."