He walked up and down his room with his hands tightly clenched behind his back. As the minutes passed he grew cooler and more collected. What would they do? They could not pass over so public a defiance; there must be an enquiry, there would have to be witnesses. The curious illusions that had been with him during these last weeks—the illusions about the other Mr. Perrin, for instance, and that strange fancy about Traill being always in the room—had vanished suddenly. Things were as they most certainly appeared to be; that table, those chairs were most solidly there, and Mr. Perrin touched them with his hands and smiled at their solidity. Then also it was odd that those incidents that had seemed only that morning of such paramount importance were now insignificant. That quarrel over the umbrella, for instance—really, how absurd! When one was a rebel, a Prometheus, one of the Titans, why then this ignominious quarreling was a small affair. He pushed all the question of Traill aside with almost a contemptuous smile. There were bigger things now in the world. What would they do? That was now the all-important question. What would the staff do? Perrin sat in his armchair by his smoldering fire and thought about them all. Birk-land with his superior sarcasm, Comber with his bullying patronage, West the vulgarian, the puppy Traill; now they would see that there was someone who could do more talking; now they would find that they owed their deliverance to someone whom they had hitherto despised. He was elated; he was triumphant. He saw himself in the midst of that hall, standing before them all, denouncing that iniquity.... The afternoon drew to evening. Many voices had sounded below his window, but the summer evening was now drawing, softly and quietly, about the world. Voices came like notes of music at long intervals across the darkening lawns. It was nearly seven o'clock and presently it would be time for chapel. The staff always gathered in the Senior common room before chapel and they would all be there now. As he paced his room Mr. Perrin saw them gathered there, talking. He felt an eager impatience to know what they were saying. Of course they would be talking about him, discussing it all. His impatience grew. He felt that he could not go into chapel until he had heard what they had to say. He saw them turn as he entered the room, their sudden silence, and then their eager coming forward. They would tell him their plans; perhaps they had already prepared a written protest supporting his own outburst. He must go. He hurriedly put on his gown and hastened with shining eyes and a beating heart to the Upper School. He heard, before he opened the door, the buzz of voices, and he entered the room proudly. They were all gathered about the fire—all of them, he thought, except Traill. Birkland was in the middle of them and they seemed to be all talking at once, West's voice above the others.