Most inopportunely then the bell began to ring for afternoon-school, and, most inopportunely also, he was due to take five _beta_ in drawing. They clambered down the ladder, chatting vivaciously the while, and at the vestry door, when they separated she said eagerly: "Oh, I've had _such_ a good time, Mr. Speed. Haven't you?" "Rather!" he answered, with boyish emphasis and enthusiasm. That afternoon hour, spent bewilderingly with five _beta_ in the art-room that was full of plaster casts and free-hand models and framed reproductions of famous pictures, went for Speed like the passage of a moment. His heart and brain were tingling with excitement, teeming with suppressed consciousness. The green of the lawns as he looked out of the window seemed greener than ever before; the particles of dust that shone in the shafts of sunlight seemed to him each one mightily distinct; the glint of a boy's golden hair in the sunshine was, to his eyes, like a patch of flame that momentarily put all else in a haze. It seemed to him, passionately and tremendously, that for the first time in his life he was alive; more than that even: it seemed to him that for the first time since the beginning of all things life had come shatteringly into the world. III "I should think, Mr. Speed, you have found out by now whether Helen likes you or not." Those words of Clare Harrington echoed in his ears as he walked amidst the dappled sunlight on the Millstead road. They echoed first of all in the quiet tones in which Clare had uttered them; next, they took on a subtle, meaningful note of their own; finally, they submerged all else in a crescendo of passionate triumph. Speed was almost stupefied by their gradually self-revealing significance. He strode on faster, dug his heels more decisively into the dust of the roadside; he laughed aloud; his walking-stick pirouetted in a joyful circle. To any passer-by he must have seemed a little mad. And all because of a few words that Clare Harrington, riding along the lane on her bicycle, had stopped to say to him.