He waved his hand with a curt “Good-day”; and tramped out of the room on clanking heels. Anthony decided, thinking it out in the train, to tell Caroline of what had passed, and of the need for getting Noll coached at once for the next term at Oxford. He did not see any particular reason why the lad should go to the university; but everyone did go--it was the thing to do. And then--there was the girl---- He thought, all things considered, there was no need to mention Betty Modeyne. CHAPTER XXIII _Wherein the Major fights a Brilliant Rearguard Action; and Beats off a Pressing Attack_ It was the hour of social calls. The suburban world was a-rustle in its best clothes, sallying forth in carriage and on foot to play at being in the whirl of fashion; Major Modeyne stood in drunken dignity on the whitewashed steps of the house, his coat turned outside in, his shirt hanging out before and behind, and flouted by street-boys. And the whole stucco front blushed with shame. Even the titter in the areas, where kitchen-maids peeped through the railings at the rare comedy, was not without some sense of adverse criticism. His “friends” in the city had thought the joke a killingly funny one; indeed, when, at the door of _The Cock and Bull_ in Fleet Street, the Major had thanked them for the honour of their friendship, and, with a rending hiccup, had started amidst street urchins on his solemn homeward procession in this guise early in the afternoon, they had clung to each other and had wept with laughter, hysteric at the splendour of their humour. Nay, it provoked a mighty thirst and much recounting of whimsical details in drinking shops for a long day. The story grew.... But now that he was arrived in his own street, the pestering swarm of street-urchins that buzzed at the Major’s straying heels feared the joke was cracked--yet they were loath to give up the tattered shreds of it whilst there was a guffaw left to them. The point of honour during the journey had been to get in under the play of the Major’s cane, and pluck a strip off his shirt-tails; it had been a running fight as long as he tramped the streets, the victory now with the boys, now with the Major’s lunge of cane; but the gallant officer stood at last before his stronghold, and his back was to it. A bloody nose or so amongst the boys showed that the old soldier had not wholly lost the cunning of a heavy hand. Yet he was vaguely troubled where he stood. He questioned his ability to mount the steps unaided--and mount them he must before he could achieve the ringing of the bell; he feared also that it would involve the turning of his back upon the enemy. With masterly coolness of judgment, he decided to wait until somebody came to the house, and then to conduct his retreat, under cover of their entry, to the citadel. A crowd collected.