“A good fellow that,” said Marston, after he had gone, “and a bit of a sport too, by all accounts. I must try and see more of him.”
And in his study Roland had picked up a calendar and was counting the days that lay between him and Freedom.
Mr. Whately’s one idea on his return to Hammerton was to hide the fact that Roland’s sudden leaving was the result of a scandal. He wished the decision in no way to seem unpremeditated. Two days later, therefore, he went round to the Curtises’ and prepared the way by a discussion of the value of university training.
“Really, you know, Mrs. Curtis,” he said, “I very much doubt whether Oxford is as useful as we sometimes think it is. What will Roland be able to do afterwards? If I know Roland he will do precious little work. He is not very clever; I doubt if he will get into the Civil Service, and what else is there open to him? Nothing, perhaps, except schoolmastering, and he would not be much use at that. I am not at all certain that it is not wiser, on the whole, to take a boy away at about seventeen or eighteen, send him abroad for a couple of months and then put him into business.”
Mrs. Curtis was not a little surprised. For a good sixteen years Mr. Whately had refused to consider the possibility of any education for Roland other than Fernhurst and Brasenose.
“But you are not thinking of taking him away from Fernhurst and not sending him to Brasenose?” she said.
“Oh, no, Mrs. Curtis, but I have been thinking that if we could do things all over again I am not at all sure but that’s not the way I should have arranged his education.”
A few nights later he came round again, and again talked of the value of two or three months in France.
“What does Roland think about it, Mr. Whately?” she asked.
“As a matter of fact, I only heard from Roland on the subject to-day; he seems quite keen on it. I just threw it out as a suggestion to him. I pointed out that most of his friends will have left at the end of the term, that next year he would be rather lonely, and that there would not be anything very much for him to do when he came down from Oxford. He seemed to agree with me.”
Mrs. Curtis, however, was no fool. She had spent the greater part of her middle age sitting in front of a fire watching life drift past her, and her one amusement had been the examination of the motives and actions of her friends.