Before she opened the door of her room she knew that she would find Him there, triumphant. With a gesture of impatient irritation she pushed the door open. CHAPTER IX YOUNG JOHN SCARLETT I That fatal September--the September that was to see young John take his adventurous way to his first private school--surely, steadily approached. Mrs. Scarlett, an emotional and sentimental little woman, vibrating and taut like a telegraph wire, told herself repeatedly that she would make no sign. The preparations proceeded, the date--September 23rd--was constantly evoked, a dreadful ghost, by the careless, light-hearted family. Mr. Scarlett made no sign. From the hour of John's birth--nearly ten years ago--Mrs. Scarlett had never known a day when she had not been compelled to control her sentimental affections. From the first John had been an adorable baby, from the first he had followed his father in the rejection of all sentiment as un-English, and even if larger questions are involved, unpatriotic, but also from the first he had hinted, in surprising, furtive, agitating moments, at poetry, imagination, hidden, romantic secrets. Tom, May, Clare, the older children, had never been known to hint at anything--hints were not at all in their line, and of imagination they had not, between them, enough to fill a silver thimble--they were good, sturdy, honest children, with healthy stomachs and an excellent determination to do exactly the things that their class and generation were bent upon doing. Mrs. Scarlett was fond of them, of course, and because she was a sentimental woman she was sometimes quite needlessly emotional about them, but John--no. John was of another world. The other children felt, beyond question, this difference. They deferred to John about everything and regarded him as leader of the family, and in their deference there was more than simply a recognition of his sturdy independence. Even John's father, Mr. Reginald Scarlett, a K.C., and a man of a most decisive and emphatic bearing, felt John's difference. John's appearance was unengaging rather than handsome--a snub nose, grey eyes, rather large ears, a square, stocky body and short, stout legs. He was certainly the most independent small boy in England, and very obstinate; when any proposal that seemed on the face of it absurd was made to him, he shut up like a box. His mouth would close, his eyes disappear, all light and colour would die from his face, and it was as though he said: "Well, if you are stupid enough to persist in this thing you can compel me, of course--you are physically stronger than I--but you will only get me like this quite dead and useless, and a lot of good may it do you!"