There were things
that one didn't--if one had self-respect--say.
That year the summer was of a blazing heat. Every morning saw a sky of
steely blue, the corn stood like a golden band about the hills, and little
clouds like the softest feathers were blown by the Gods about the world. A
mist clung about the distant hills and clothed them in purple grey. As the
term grew to its close Peter felt that the world was a prison of coloured
steel, and that Dawson's was a true Hell...he would escape from it with
Cards. And then when he saw that such an escape would be running away and
a confession of defeat--he turned back and held his will in command.
Cards looked upon his approaching departure as a great deliverance. He was
to be a man immediately; not for him that absurdly dilatory condition of
pimples and hobbledehoy boots that mark a transition period. Dawson's had
been the most insignificant sojourn in the tent of the enemy, and the
world, it was implied, had lamented his enforced absence. But, as the end
of term flung its shadows in front of it in the form of examinations, and
that especial quality of excited expectancy hovering about the corridors,
Cards felt, for the first time in his existence, a genuine emotion. He
minded, curiously, leaving Peter. He felt, although in this he wrongly
anticipated the gods, that he would never see him again, and he calculated
perhaps at the little piece of real affection and friendship that stood out
from the Continental Tour that he wished Life to be, like a palm tree on
the limitless desert.
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