He saw the Headmaster on the morning of Speech day, and was warmly thanked for the honor he had brought to the school, and was engaged to appear on the first day of the following term. Desiring to see his old form-master, Mr. Beenham, he went to his room and was surprised to find his desk empty and the boys playing cricket with a German Grammar and a ball of paper tied with string. As he left the school he asked the porter after Mr. Beenham, and the porter told him that story. It upset him. Of all human beings he had regarded Old Mole as the least human, but now he was desiring to exercise his released intelligence, his power of penetration, his imagination upon the surrounding world. All his faculties had been concentrated upon economics as a means to an end, the life which lay beyond examinations. Professor Smallman and the Headmaster had made him feel that the life beyond was distressingly like the life before, and now this disaster to Old Mole came as some small assurance that there were adventures though they might be never so foolish. The Professor had mildly alarmed his pupil by pointing out the similarity of their careers. Admire Smallman as he might, it was not _that_ to which René wished to come. It was not that he had any excitement in contemplating the future. On the contrary: the present was too absorbing. Everybody was charming to him, seemed to be proud of him; the rich Fourmys had asked him to their houses--and he had refused. He found himself being listened to, respected, given the right to have views and opinions. He had neither, and was too honest to evolve them for the occasion. And when the future insisted upon engaging his attention, he filled it with Linda and was happy. He refused to go to Scotland, half despising his memories of it. He was happy, simply engrossed in his own comfortable sensations. He had set out to do a thing and done it well, better even than he or anyone else had anticipated; he was in love and engaged to be married upon the condition of making three hundred a year. His success had made that easily possible; his studentship, one hundred and fifty from the school, more from the _Post_, possible examination papers, lectures; his hardly-won book knowledge had been shaped by his reputation into a marketable commodity.