He felt then, as he had never felt before he came to Millstead, that the world was full, brimming full, of wonderful majestic beauty, and that now, as the scented air swirled round him in slow magnificent eddies, it was searching for something, searching with passionate and infinite desire for something that eluded it always. He could not understand or analyse all that he felt, but sometimes lately a deep shaft of ultimate feeling would seem to grip him round the body and send the tears swimming into his eyes, as if for one glorious moment he had seen and heard something of another world. It came suddenly to him now, as he sat on the pavilion seats with the silver starshine above him and the air full of the smells of earth and flowers; it seemed to him that something mighty must be abroad in the world, that all this tremulous loveliness could not live without a meaning, that he was on the verge of some strange and magic revelation. Clear as bells on the silent air came the sound of girls' voices. He heard a rich, tolling "Good night, Clare!" Then silence again, silence in which he seemed to know more things than he had ever known before. CHAPTER THREE I One afternoon he called at Harrington's, in the High Street, to buy a book. It was a tiny low-roofed shop, the only one of its kind in Millstead, and with the sale of books it combined that of newspapers, stationery, pictures and fancy goods. It was always dark and shadowy, yet, unlike the Head's study at the school, this gloom possessed a cheerful soothing quality that made the shop a pleasant haven of refuge when the pavements outside were dazzling and sun-scorched. It was on such an afternoon that Speed visited the shop for the first time. Usually he had no occasion to, for, though he dealt with Harrington's, an errand-boy visited the school every morning to take orders and saved him the trouble of a walk into the village. This afternoon, however, he recollected a text-book that he wanted and had forgotten to order; besides, the heat of the mid-afternoon tempted him to seek shelter in one or other of the tranquil diamond-windowed shops whose sun-blinds sprawled unevenly along the street. It was the hottest day of the term, so far. A huge thermometer outside Harrington's gave the shade temperature as a little over seventy-nine; all the roadway was bubbling with little gouts of soft tar. The innumerable dogs of Millstead, quarrelsome by nature, had called an armistice on account of the heat, and lay languidly across shady sections of the pavement. Speed, tanned by a week of successive hot days, with a Panama pushed down over his forehead to shield his eyes from dazzle, pushed open the small door and entered the cool cavern of the shop.