Evan stared, but did not laugh; he was now studiously kind in look and word, and yet there was something about both that strangely angered Jan. Look and word, in fact, were alike instinctively measured, and the kindness perfunctory if not exactly condescending. There was, to be sure, no conscious reminder, on Evan’s part, of past inequality; and yet there was just as little to show that in their new life Evan was prepared to treat Jan as an equal; nay, on their former footing he had been far more friendly. If his present manner augured anything, he was to be neither the friend nor the foe of Jan’s extreme hopes and fears. And the unforeseen mien was not the less confusing and exasperating because Jan was confused and exasperated without at the time quite knowing why. “You needn’t think it was because you were here,” he added suddenly, aggressively—“because I thought you were at Winchester.” “I didn’t flatter myself,” retorted Evan. “But, as a matter of fact, I should be there if I hadn’t got a scholarship here.” “So I suppose,” said Jan. “And yet I’m in the form below you!” Evan was once more openly amused at this, and perhaps not so secretly annoyed as he imagined. “I know,” said Jan. “That wasn’t my fault, either. I doubt they’ve placed me far too high.” “But how did you manage to get half so high?” asked Evan, with a further ingenuous display of what was in his mind. “Well, there was the vicar, to begin with.” “That old sinner!” said Evan. “I used to go to him three nights a week.” “Now I remember.” “Then you heard what happened when my father died?” “Yes.” “It would be a surprise to you, Master Evan?” It had been on the tip of his tongue more than once, but until now he had found no difficulty in keeping it there. Yet directly they got back to the old days, out it slipped without a moment’s warning. “You’d better not call me that again,” said Evan, dryly. “I won’t.” “Unless you want the whole school to know!” “You see, my mother’s friends——” “I know. I’ve heard all about it. I always had heard—about your mother.” Jan had only heard that pitiful romance from his father’s dying lips; it was then the boy had promised to obey her family in all things, and his coming here was the first thing of all. He said as much in his own words, which were bald and broken, though by awkwardness rather than emotion. Then Evan asked, as it were in his stride, if Jan’s mother’s people had a “nice place,” and other questions which might have betrayed to a more sophisticated observer a wish to ascertain whether they really were gentlefolk as alleged. Jan answered that it was “a nice enough place”; but he pointed to a photograph in an Oxford frame—the photograph of a large house reflected in a little artificial lake—a house with a slate roof and an ornamental tower, and no tree higher than the first-floor windows. “That’s a nicer place,” said Jan, with a sigh. “I daresay,” Evan acquiesced, with cold complacency.