The heroes regarded Michael with surprize and distaste; they shrank from him coldly as if his unreasonable outburst in some way involved their honour. They laughed uncomfortably, each one hiding himself behind another’s shoulders, as if they mocked a madman. The bell for school rang, and the heroes left him. Michael, still enraged, went back to his class-room. Then he wondered if Alan would hate him for having made his uncle’s death an occasion for this breach of a school’s code of manners. He supposed sadly that Alan would not understand any more than the others what he felt. He cursed himself for having let these ordinary, obvious, fat-headed fools impose upon his imagination, as to lead him to consider them worthy of his respect. He had wasted three months in this society; he had thought he was happy and had congratulated himself upon at last finding school endurable. School was a prison, such as it always had been. He was seventeen and a schoolboy. It was ignominious. At one o’clock he waited for nobody, but walked quickly home to lunch, still fuming with the loss of his self-control and, as he looked back on the scene, of his dignity. His mother came down to lunch with signs of a morning’s tears, and Michael looked at her in astonishment. He had not supposed that she would be much affected by the death of Captain Ross, and he enquired if she had been writing to Mrs. Ross. “No, dear,” said Mrs. Fane. “Why should I have written to Mrs. Ross this morning?” “Didn’t you see in the paper?” Michael asked. “See what?” “That Captain Ross was killed in action.” “Oh, no,” gasped his mother, white and shuddering. “Oh, Michael, how horrible, and on the same day.” “The same day as what?” Mrs. Fane looked at her son for a moment very intently, as if she were minded to tell him something. Then the parlour-maid came into the room, and she seemed to change her mind, and finally said in perfectly controlled accents: “The same day as the announcement is made that—that your old friend Lord Saxby has raised a troop of horse—Saxby’s horse. He is going to Africa almost at once.” “Another gentleman going to be killed for the sake of these rowdy swine at home!” said Michael savagely. “Michael! What do you mean? Don’t you admire a man for—for trying to do something for his country?” “It depends on the country,” Michael answered, “If you think it’s worth while doing anything for what England is now, I don’t. I wouldn’t raise a finger, if London were to be invaded to-morrow.” “I don’t understand you, dearest boy. You’re talking rather like a Radical, and rather like old Conservative gentlemen I remember as a girl. It’s such a strange mixture. I don’t think you quite understand what you’re saying.” “I understand perfectly what I’m saving,” Michael contradicted.