The romantic friendship has a modest place in the schoolboy's scale of values, but its nature is curious enough. It has the great charm of the forbidden. It is mixed with fear. Even after the first interest has waned, its setting makes it a delightful toy that no one would willingly throw away. It is the flavouring to the routine. There is usually a 'go between' who carries messages from one to the other. And the glance across a table stating that the intermediary has something of interest to disclose is one of the exciting moments of the day, as exciting as the post is to a recluse or the arrival of rations to a soldier. There are jealousies and intrigues. There is the interchange of notes--the joy of a secret. There are carefully arranged appointments. On Sundays there will be meetings in some prearranged point outside the town, at which each will arrive by a different route, and they will sit in a wood and talk till the afternoon has waned and the chiming of the abbey clock warns them that roll-call is imminent. It is not surprising that such an adventure should appeal irresistibly to a schoolboy. When such a friendship is ended either by the appearance of a rival, or more frequently through the inclination of the smaller boy, who has risen in the school and feels that such a position is beneath his dignity, the elder boy feels an immense gap in his life. The immediate sense of anticipation has gone. There is nothing particular to which he may look forward. He is bored. Often he drifts into such another friendship out of loneliness. Authority adopts towards these friendships a wavering attitude. It realises that such a friendship does not necessarily imply the least indecency, that it often, on the other hand, has a very salubrious effect on the elder boy, but it still is vividly aware of the danger. Suppose something went wrong; suppose there was a grave scandal, on whose shoulders would the responsibility rest. We can well imagine a resentful father asking a head master why, if he was aware of the existence of such a friendship, he did not take immediate steps to stop it. 'You knew about this,' he would say, 'while my son was still innocent: why did you not protect him? Why should you knowingly subject him to such a risk?' The head master has always to be thinking of what a boy's parents will say. It is difficult for him to work on the plan of 'circumstances alter cases.' He would thus lay himself open to the accusation of favouritism. 'You didn't stop Cartright and Evans, sir,' is a weapon for which a master has no shield. There is usually a compromise.[5] The attitude of authority is one of nervous hesitance. The schoolboy, as in all other cases, evolves his own standards from his own life. It remains to be seen what are the actual effects on the partners in a relationship that must have a large influence on their subsequent development.