She had read the passage as if declaiming to an audience. It was quite a typical extract from the works of the late Mr. Harrington: such phrases as 'dire perils,' 'difficulties galore,' and 'ringing challenge of the gods' contained all that was most truly characteristic of the prose style of the Helping-Hand-Books. Speed said, rather coldly: "Do you know what one would wonder, hearing you talk like this?" "What?" "One would wonder if you had any heart at all." Again the curious look came into her eyes and the note of asperity into her voice. "If I had, do you think I would let you see it, Mr. Speed?" she said. They stared at each other almost defiantly for a moment; then, as if by mutual consent, allowed the conversation to wander into unimportant gossip about Millstead. Nor from those placid channels did it afterwards stray away. Hostility of a kind persisted between them more patently than ever; yet, in a curiously instinctive way, they shook hands when they separated as if they were staunch friends. As he stepped out into High Street the thought of Helen came to him as a shaft of sunlight round the edges of a dark cloud. VI Term finished in a scurry of House-matches and examinations. School House won the cricket trophy and there was a celebratory dinner at which Speed accompanied songs and made a nervously witty speech and was vociferously applauded. "We all know we're the best House," said Clanwell, emphatically, "and what we've got to do is just to prove to other people that we are." Speed said: "I've only been in School House a term, but it's been long enough time for me to be glad I'm where I am and not in any other House." (Cheers.) Amidst such jingoist insincerities a very pleasant evening romped its way to a close. The following day, the last day of term, was nearly as full of new experiences as had been the first day. School House yard was full of boxes and trunks waiting to be collected by the railway carriers, and in amongst it all, small boys wandered forlornly, secretly happy yet weak with the cumulative passion of anticipation. In the evening there was the farewell dinner in the dining-hall, the distribution of the terminal magazine, and the end-of-term concert, this last concluding with the Millstead School-Song, the work of an uninspired composer in one of his most uninspired moments. Then, towards ten o'clock in the evening, a short service in chapel, followed by a "rag" on the school quadrangle, brought the long last day to a close. Cheers were shouted for the Masters, for Doctor and Mrs. Ervine, for those leaving, and (facetiously) for the school porter. That night there was singing and rowdyism in the dormitories, but Speed did not interfere.