At this bland query spoken from under the lamp at the garden gate,like some demand of a god,their nerves gave way,and snatching up their coats,they ran at the railings,shinned up them,and made for the secluded spot whence they had issued to the fight.Here,in dim light,they mopped their faces,and without a word walked,ten paces apart,to the college gate.They went out silently,Val going towards the Broad along the Brewery,Jolly down the lane towards the High.His head,still fumed,was busy with regret that he had not displayed more science,passing in review the counters and knockout blows which he had not delivered.His mind strayed on to an imagined combat,infinitely unlike that which he had just been through,infinitely gallant,with sash and sword,with thrust and parry,as if he were in the pages of his beloved Dumas.He fancied himself La Mole,and Aramis,Bussy,Chicot,and D'Artagnan rolled into one,but he quite failed to envisage Val as Coconnas,Brissac,or Rochefort.The fellow was just a confounded cousin who didn't come up to Cocker.Never mind!He had given him one or two.'Pro-Boer!'The word still rankled,and thoughts of en-listing jostled his aching head;of riding over the veldt,firing gallantly,while the Boers rolled over like rabbits.And,turning up his smarting eyes,he saw the stars shining between the house-tops of the High,and himself lying out on the Karoo (whatever that was)rolled in a blanket,with his rifle ready and his gaze fixed on a glittering heaven.
He had a fearful 'head'next morning,which he doctored,as became one of 'the best,'by soaking it in cold water,brewing strong coffee which he could not drink,and only sipping a little Hock at lunch.The legend that 'some fool'had run into him round a corner accounted for a bruise on his cheek.He would on no account have mentioned the fight,for;on second thoughts,it fell far short of his standards.
The next day he went 'down,'and travelled through to Robin Hill.
Nobody was there but June and Holly,for his father had gone to Paris.He spent a restless and unsettled Vacation,quite out of touch with either of his sisters.June,indeed,was occupied with lame ducks,whom,as a rule,Jolly could not stand,especially that Eric Cobbley and his family,'hopeless outsiders,'who were always littering up the house in the Vacation.And between Holly and himself there was a strange division,as if she were beginning to have opinions of her own,which was so--unnecessary.He punched viciously at a ball,rode furiously but alone in Richmond Park,making a point of jumping the stiff,high hurdles put up to close certain worn avenues of grass--keeping his nerve in,he called it.
Jolly was more afraid of being afraid than most boys are.He bought a rifle,too,and put a range up in the home field,shooting across the pond into the kitchen--garden wall,to the peril of gardeners,with the thought that some day,perhaps,he would enlist and save South Africa for his country.In fact,now that they were appealing for Yeomanry recruits the boy was thoroughly upset.
Ought he to go?None of 'the best,'so far as he knew--and he was in correspondence with several--were thinking of joining.If they had been making a move he would have gone at once--very compet-itive,and with a strong sense of form,he could not bear to be left behind in anything--but to do it off his own bat might look like 'swagger';because of course it wasn't really necessary.
Besides,he did not want to go,for the other side of this young Forsyte recoiled from leaping before he looked.It was altogether mixed pickles within him,hot and sickly pickles,and he became quite unlike his serene and rather lordly self.
And then one day he saw that which moved him to uneasy wrath--two riders,in a glade of the Park close to the Ham Gate,of whom she on the left-hand was most assuredly Holly on her silver roan,and he on the right-hand as assuredly that 'squirt'Val Dartie.His first impulse was to urge on his own horse and demand the meaning of this portent,tell the fellow to 'bunk,'and take Holly home.