You see that I was quite deliberately listening. I am not putting on any airs about it. I might have been Polwhele. I wanted to know, so I listened. I did more than listen too. I watched. I knew that the shelves were only half full on the other side; only a screen of stout wire separated the books facing one way from those facing the other; and by pulling out a book or two on my side I should probably find a peephole.... Very softly I pulled three or four out, found my opening and looked. Miss Causton appeared to be standing with her back towards me; I couldn't see her; but I could see Miss Windus, sitting on the library ladder holding its short staff, with her plaid skirt pulled tightly about one carrot-shaped thigh. They began to talk again. "And another thing that makes me _quite_ sure, dear! She's going to young Merridew's next week-end!" "Oh!..." "Don't be absurd. You know what I mean. To his parents', of course; they live in Guildford.... Not that _she_ told me, oh no! Not her ladyship!" "Who did, then?" "Not her, though I gave her _every_ chance! Six months ago she'd have told me like a shot, but we're getting so blessed artful these days!... He told me." "Then it doesn't look as if it _was_ the Baboon?" "Oh, I daresay she'll leave you your Baboon if you want him." "Thanks. I think I should know which way to turn in _that_ case," Miss Causton replied evenly. "Coming?" And they left the bay together. It was by this admirable piece of Rixon Tebb & Masters' work that I learned what, it appeared, I had been watching too closely to see. VI I had intended in any case to spend the remainder of that evening with Archie Merridew. Mingled with my restlessness there had been a tremulous sensitiveness that had culminated half-an-hour before in a fit of satanic pride. Lately (I had decided) it had come to be taken rather too much as a matter of course that our frequent adjournments after the evening class should be always to his quarters and never, or hardly ever, to mine. I had quite enough to bear without further gratuitous rubs of that kind, and I had resolved that I would make myself his host that evening though he had lived in a mansion and I in a sty. But after what I had so altogether discreditably overheard now I had fifty other reasons for wishing him to come along with me. Almost every sentence that had been spoken on the other side of that bay of books had contained a reason. But I realised that before I could trust myself to face him I must swallow the anger that crowded thickly into my throat. There was nothing to gain and everything to lose by letting him see my rage. So I walked back into the empty senior classroom, there to remain until I should have got the worst of it over.