“Oh, that's all right,” he answered, turning away from her and pulling at the string. “It was a beastly thing to do all the same,” he added. “Will you forgive me?” she asked. “Oh, there isn't any forgiveness about it. Girls are queer, I suppose. I don't understand them myself. There, that's better... I say, it was simply beastly under that tree--” “Was it?” “Beastly! There was something howling somewhere--a cat or something.” “You do forgive me, don't you?” “Yes, yes... I say, is that right now? Oh, it won't stay there. It's the wall or something.” He came down from the chair yawning. “Jim's nice,” he confided to her. “He's going to take me ratting one day!” “I'm going,” Mary said again, and waited. Jeremy coloured, looked as though he would say something, then, in silence, presented a very grimy cheek. “Good-night,” he said, with an air of intense relief. “Good-night,” she said, kissing him. She closed the door behind her. She knew that the worst had happened. He had passed away, utterly beyond her company, her world, her interests. She crept along to her room, and there, with a determination and a strength rare in a child so young and so undisciplined, faced her loneliness. CHAPTER XI. THE MERRY-GO-ROUND I The holidays were over. The Coles were once more back in Polchester, and the most exciting period of Jeremy's life had begun. So at any rate he felt it. It might be that in later years there would be new exciting events, lion-hunting, for instance, or a war, or the tracking of niggers in the heart of Africa--he would be ready for them when they came--but these last weeks before his first departure for school offered him the prospect of the first real independence of his life. There could never be anything quite like that again. Nevertheless, school seemed still a long way distant. It was only his manliness that he was realising and a certain impatience and restlessness that underlay everything that he did.