But he had funked it, seeing then that he might have to explain his luck-loves-me mood in front of Nina and Mrs. Fraser and his mother and Ursula and Miss Roberts---- Anyhow, what were they all doing crowded up in the drawing-room? “But when did you notice it, Hal?” “Why didn’t you take it back at once?” He could have pretended only to discover it in his pocket then ... it had got loose from the little bundle--“Good Lord, yes, here it is!” But that would have been a lie, too, and secret acknowledgment that he had no claim on the note from the beginning. Before he could decide what to do, he had said: “Sorry, Aunt Lavvy----” But now he repudiated the absurd childish mood which had led to his acceptance of bounty from nowhere. For a few moments, he had been more than self-conscious schoolboy; for a few moments, he had held happiness like a flask of wine, shot gold with slanting sunbeams, high above his head. For a few moments he had held it there, shouting.... These emotional chaps--all over the place--came to grief sometime.... “I warn you, Bunny. Besides, it isn’t done.” There was a stagnant smell round the “earthworks”--rotting leaves, and moisture, and a flat grey sky.... He was, without excuse, without fine shades of “but” and “because,” a thief and a liar--and deadly miserably ashamed of himself. Hal dragged himself to his feet, and wondered drearily to whom his first abasement and confession should be. If it were Winborough, of course he would go straight to the Head. School was so--uncomplicated, compared with home. Nina was his natural confidante, as far as he had ever needed one, which was only a very little way. But Nina--thought such a lot of him. You need not necessarily choose your highest pedestal to fall from. Bunny? Before he could decide, Bunny came sauntering dejectedly down to the earthworks. “Hello!” “Hello!” “Just finished doing old Nina’s bed. She’s frightfully fed-up with me,” Bunny explained inconsequently. “It wasn’t the frog she minded, it was that Fraser person.” Then, with a sudden wrench: “I’m in a deuce of a mess!” And Hal found himself listening, with his habitual air of half-humorous authority, to Bunny boasting of his caricature and tuck-shop scrapes. Bunny always laughed and boasted when he was a little bit afraid. His eyes pleaded absolution from his senior’s jawing.