sealed and stamped the envelope Henry uttered a belated caution.

"Perhaps on the whole it would be wiser to say nothing about the
boy to Comus. He doesn't always respond to directions you know."

Francesca did know, and already was more than half of her brother's
opinion; but the woman who can sacrifice a clean unspoiled penny
stamp is probably yet unborn.



CHAPTER II



Lancelot Chetrof stood at the end of a long bare passage,
restlessly consulting his watch and fervently wishing himself half
an hour older with a certain painful experience already registered
in the past; unfortunately it still belonged to the future, and
what was still more horrible, to the immediate future. Like many
boys new to a school he had cultivated an unhealthy passion for
obeying rules and requirements, and his zeal in this direction had
proved his undoing. In his hurry to be doing two or three
estimable things at once he had omitted to study the notice-board
in more than a perfunctory fashion and had thereby missed a
football practice specially ordained for newly-joined boys. His
fellow juniors of a term's longer standing had graphically
enlightened him as to the inevitable consequences of his lapse; the
dread which attaches to the unknown was, at any rate, deleted from
his approaching doom, though at the moment he felt scarcely