"No. He doesn't hate you, Anne. He's going through a bad time, that's
all. He can't help being cross."

"Why can't he? He's got everything he wants."

"Has he?"

Uncle Robert was smiling. And this time his smile was for himself. She
didn't understand it.


vii

Anne was going away. She said she supposed now that Eliot would be
happy.

Grandmamma Severn thought she had been long enough running loose with
those Fielding boys. Grandpapa Everitt agreed with her and they decided
that in September Anne should go to the big girls' college in
Cheltenham. Grandmamma and Aunt Emily had left London and taken a house
in Cheltenham and Anne was to live with them there.

Colin and she were going in the same week, Colin to his college and Anne
to hers.

They were discussing this prospect. Colin and Jerrold and Anne in
Colin's room. It was a chilly day in September and Colin was in bed
surrounded by hot water bottles. He had tried to follow Jerrold in his
big jump across the river and had fallen in. He was not ill, but he
hoped he would be, for then he couldn't go back to Cheltenham next week.