“Then there’ll be a rebellion,” said Terence again. “The school won’t stand it. They absolutely idolise Rouse.” Toby spread his hands. “Think it over,” said he. “Reason it out. I’m going. If he comes to ask you comic questions in form to-morrow morning just keep your head and don’t give anything away. I shan’t see him again to-night. He’s in a bad temper. I’ll wait till after morning school to-morrow. Then I’ll join issue with him after he’s visited your form. And above all,” he added finally, “don’t be downhearted. This turn of events is as bad as it possibly could be, but you aren’t alone. You’re no end of a dunce, Rouse, but you’ve got the school behind you, and there’s comfort in that.” They watched him go, and when they were left alone Rouse turned to Terence and smiled whimsically. “Nick, old bird,” said he, “I feel as sick and sorry as a lame dog—but there’s something in me that won’t lie down. It keeps on shoving up from under my spirits like bubbly under a cork. And if that old buffer comes and asks me in the morning how many beans make five, it’s a hundred to one I shall make the stupid response: ‘The answer is a lemon.’ I just shan’t be able to help myself.” CHAPTER VI A RISING STAR In the days of his early youth Henry Hope had appeared to those about him to be an old, old man dressed in an Eton suit. His large rimmed spectacles had lent him the air of a scholastic genius, and he was, by habit, pitifully pedantic. In addition he was dignified, and self-reliant to a fault, and he had no ability of any kind at games. But at least his heart was in the right place. More than once his meditative resource had helped Terence and Rouse out of a sad scrape, and accordingly he was their beloved friend. In the course of the last few years he had been growing up—lengthways, that is to say—and Henry Hope had changed a little from the Henry Hope of old. In the atmosphere of Harley he had grown rather less of a hermit and rather more of a boy. He had opened out. He was still totally devoid of a sense of humour, and he still used grave words both in season and out, but he had become, in one sense at least, human. He was a devotee of the cinema. Also he had decided what he was going to be. He was going to be an actor in film plays. He knew one such actor already, and it seemed to him that this would provide him with an effective introduction into the right clique when the time came. Toby Nicholson was the actor. At one period of his life Toby had turned an honest penny by risking his life before the camera on selected days, and though this was, for obvious reasons, not the line of business in which Henry proposed to make his mark, it was at all events good to feel that he was not totally unacquainted with the way things were done.