As time went on, however, Eager's careful oversight of the boys began to note slight points of divergence in the lines of their characteristics, which had so far run absolutely side by side. Jack, for instance, began to develop a somewhat tentative kind of self-control. His brain seemed to become more active. At times he even attempted to subject Jim to discipline for lapses from his own view of the right way of things. And Jim took him on right joyously; and the pitched battles, which Eager had been striving to relegate to the background, were renewed with vehemence, within the strict limits of the new rules thereto ordained. Gracie was distressed at this falling away. But Eager bade her be of good cheer, and watched developments with interest. Meanwhile, the boys muscles and skill in self-defence grew mightily. There was no doubt about it, Jack was harvesting his grain the quicker of the two--so far as could be seen, at all events. The difference between them when instruction was to the fore was somewhat marked. Jack gave his mind to it and took it in, evinced a desire to get to the bottom of things, even asked questions at times on points that were not clear to him. Jim, on the other hand, would sit gazing at the fount of wisdom with wide black eyes which presently wandered off after a seagull or a shadow, with a very visible inclination towards such things--or towards anything actively alive--rather than towards the passivity entailed by the pursuit of abstract knowledge. Then again, Jack succeeded at times in forcing himself to sit quite still for whole minutes on end, while Jim, after a certain limited number of seconds, was on the wriggle to be up and doing. And the moment he was loosed, the quiescence of seconds had to be atoned for by many minutes of joyous activity. They were, in fact, beginning to take the lines of the good scholar and the bad. And yet Eager confessed to himself a very warm heart for careless, happy-go-lucky Jim. "The other looks like making the deeper mark," he said to himself. "But I can't help loving old Jim. He's all one could wish except in the brain. Maybe it will come!" As to any deductions to be based upon these growing differences between the boys, he could find no sound footing. "Jack seems undoubtedly the more able," he would reason it out, "but what does that point to? Is it the high result of two blue-blooded strains, or the enriching of a blue blood with a dash of stronger red? Which would the stronger blend run to--activity of mind or activity of body?" The latter, he was inclined to think, but found it impossible to pronounce upon with anything like certainty, and realised that every other indication would inevitably lead to the same result. The riddle of Carne would never be read thus. Time and Providence might cut the knot and give to Carne its rightful heir. Pure reason, or the questionable affirmation of interested parties, never would.