His promise alone prevented Pocket from following and outstripping the doctor. He knew what the shouting was about before he could have sworn to a single raucous word. But Phillida could not know, and she resumed at once where they had left off before breakfast. “Of course I forgive you,” she whispered. “It was I began it!” “Began what?” “Our row yesterday.” Phillida had a demure twinkle, after all; but it was lost on Pocket now. “I’d forgotten all about it,” he said with superfluous candour, his ear still on the street. “I haven’t.” Her voice made him remember better. “I hope to goodness I didn’t hurt you?” “Of course you didn’t.” “But you must have thought me mad!” There was a slight but most significant pause. “Well, I never shall again.” “Then you did!” he gasped. Their eyes had met sharply; both young faces were flooded with light, and it was much the same light. There was no nonsense about it, but there was indignant horror on his side, and indignant shame on hers. “You really are at school?” she whispered, not increduously, but as one seeking assurance in so many words; and in a flash he saw what she had thought, what she had been deliberately made to think, that his beloved school was not a school at all, but an Ayslum! But at that moment Dr. Baumgartner was heard bargaining at the gate with one raucous voice, while the other went on roaring huskily, “Park murder—arrest! ’Rest o’ de Park murderer! Park murder—Park murder—arrest!” And Pocket sprang up from the table in a state that swept his last thoughts clean from his mind. The girl said something; he did not hear what. He was white and trembling, in pitiable case even to eyes that could only see skin-deep; but the doctor’s step came beating like a drum to him, and he was solidly seated when the doctor entered—without any paper at all. “It’s that murder the papers are all exploiting,” he explained benignly. “They were shouting out something about an arrest; you would hear them, I daresay. But it’s the usual swindle; the police are merely hoping to effect an arrest. I threatened to send for them unless the scoundrel took his paper back!” He was in his lightest mood of sardonic gaiety. The sins of the vendors recalled those of “your vermin press itself”; the association was wilfully unfair, the favourite phrase a studied insult; but the English boy was either dense or indifferent, and Phillida’s great eyes were in some other world. Baumgartner subjected them both to a jealous scrutiny, and suddenly cried out upon his own bad memory. It appeared there was a concert at the Albert Hall, where “the most popular and handsome pair in England” (the inverted commas were in the doctor’s sneer) were being welcomed on their return from the ends of the earth. He had intended going to hear what they could do; but Phillida should go instead; she was not past the ballad stage.