Cold pale blue was reflected against the gray stodgy clouds. Mr. Perrin went back slowly to his room. The dusty untidiness of it closed about him. He sat down to his pile of English essays on “Town and Country—Which is the best to live in?” with a confused sense of running men, lights across the hills, the china red and black man on the mantelpiece, and Miss Desart's shining eyes. At five o'clock, with a heavy scowl, Garden Minimus presented “The Patriot” neatly written fifty times. II. It was about this time that Archie Traill accepted an invitation to a dance at Sir Henry Trojan's. It was to be only a small dance, and it was to be over by twelve. “Do let us,” Lady Trojan wrote, “put you up. You will be able to see more of Robin, who is coming down for the night from London. He will want to see you so badly.” Traill wrote back, accepting the dance, but explaining that he must return on the same evening, quoting as his imperative necessity early morning preparation. It was Clinton's evening on duty, and therefore there was no very obvious necessity to say anything more about it; but Traill, in order to free himself from any further danger, thought that he would go and receive definite permission from Moy-Thompson. He had not as yet been to a single dinner or evening party outside the school, and he had noticed that the rest of the staff never went out at all, nor had apparently any intention of doing so. He went round at twelve o'clock after morning school to Moy-Thompson's study, knocked on the door, and entered. He was conscious at once of trouble in the air. He saw that White, the nervous man who took the Classical Fifth, was standing by Thompson's table. He moved back as though he would leave the room; but the headmaster called to him, “Ah! Traill, don't go. I shall be ready in a moment.” Then Traill noticed several things. He noticed, first, that Moy-Thompson's garden beyond the window was colored a brilliant brown in the sun; he noticed that Moy-Thompson's study was dark and black, like a prison; he noticed that White's long hatchet-face was yellow in the half-light; he noticed that both White's hands, hanging straight at his side, were tightly clenched, and that his thin legs, spread widely apart, were drawn tight beneath his trousers so that the cloth flapped a little against his thin calves; he noticed that Moy-Thompson's long gray beard swept the table and that his fingers tapped the wood every now and again with the sound of peas rattling on a plate; he noticed that Moy-Thompson was smiling. Moy-Thompson said, “But I think I told you that Maurice was on no account to have an exeat.” White's voice came from a far, hesitating distance: “Yes, I know. But his father was only to be in London for an hour, and he has not seen his son for a year, and I thought that under the circumstances—” “That does not alter the fact that I had expressed a wish that he should not have an exeat.”