“One thing, you know,” she said, smiling at him and blushing a little. “We must let them all know about us, at once, to-day.” “Oh! must we?” he said, shrinking back a little. “Why, of course. You don't suppose there isn't going to be talk about all this business. Of course, there is, heaps—and you must let me do my share of standing up for you. I must have the right, you know.” He had not figured the talk that there would be—he saw it all now in an instant, that there would be sides and discussions, and, looking further still, he had some idea of all the issues that were to be involved; but he was much too simple a person to think this further vision anything but fantastic: people simply didn't fight to that extent about umbrellas.... He left her with a smiling consent to the announcement of their engagement, and, for the moment, the thought of that swallowed all the Perrin affair. He went down to his football cheerfully. II. Meanwhile, in the Senior common room, during that interval between chapel and dinner, things had occurred. The news of the morning struggle had been brought, of course, by the eager witnesses, Comber and Birkland, much earlier in the day; but the school day was a very busy one—one hour followed another with terrible swiftness, and then there were boys to see and games to play and all the accumulated details to fill in any odd moments that there might be,—so that, with the exception of short sentences and exclamations and a general air of pleasurable surprise pervading everything, no real movement was possible until this evening hour. The room, lighted by gas, was more ugly and naked than ever—although it was close and stuffy, the spirit of it was cold and chill. Comber was in the chair of honor, the only arm-chair in the room; Birkland and Pons, White and Dormer, and the little science master, West, were also there. Little West was so obvious and striking an example of his type that it seemed as though he had been especially created to stand to the end of time as an example of what a Board School education and a pushing disposition can do for a man. He was short and square, with a shaggy, unkempt mustache and that sallow, unhealthy complexion that two generations of ill-fed progenitors tend to produce. He was a little bald on the top of his head, wore ready-made clothes, and spoke slowly and with great care. He had worked exceedingly hard all his youth and was the only master at Moffatt's whose ambitions were unimpaired and his optimism (concerning his own future) unchecked. His most striking feature were his hard, burning, little eyes, and it was with these that he kept order in class.