Therefore I dressed in good heart, chatting amiably with Jason, who, I could not help noticing, was at some pains to study me curiously. Such reactionary spirits are the heritage of youth. They decline with the day. My particular relapse happened, maybe, ungenerously early, for it was at breakfast I noticed the first tremulous vibrations of Zyp’s war trumpet. Clearly she had guessed the reason of the change in my manner toward her yesterday evening and was bent upon disabusing my mind of the presumptuous supposition that I held any monopoly whatsoever of her better regard. To this end she showered exaggerated attentions upon Modred and my father--even Jason coming in for his share. She had little digs at my silence and boorishness that hugely delighted the others. She slipped a corner of fat bacon into my tea and spilled salt over my bread and jam, and all the time I had to bear my suffering with a stoic heart and echo the merriment, which I did in such sardonic fashion as to call down fresh banter for my confusion. At our worst, it must be confessed, we were not a circle with a refined sense of humor. But when we rose, and Zyp brushed rudely by me with a pert toss of her head, I felt indeed as if life no longer held anything worth the striving after. I walked out into the yard to be alone, but Jason followed me. Some tenderness for old comradeship sake stirred in him momentarily, I think, for his blue eyes were good as they met mine. “What an ass you are, Renny,” he said; “to make such a to-do about the rubbish!” “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, in miserable resentment. “I’m making no to-do about anything.” My chest felt like a stone, and I could have struck him or any one. “Oh, I can see,” said he. “See what you like,” I replied, furiously, “but don’t bother me with it. I’ve nothing to do with your fancies.” “Oh, very well,” he said, coolly; “I don’t want to interfere, I’m sure.” I bounced past him and strode out of the yard. My blood was humming in my veins; the sunny street looked all glazed with a shining gray. I walked on and on, scarcely knowing whither I went. Presently I climbed St. Catherine’s hill and flung myself down on the summit. Below me, a quarter of a mile away, the old city lay in the hollow cup of its down. Who, of all its 17,000 souls, could ever stir my pulses as the little stranger from the distant shadowy forest could? We had no forests round Winton. Perhaps if we had the spirit of the trees would have colored my life, too, so that I might have scorned “the blind bow-god’s butt shaft.”