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CHAPTER III

There was a knock on the door. Denis rolled over in his bed and rubbed his eyes. Why no sunlight ? Why no golden marshes with the tide glittering through the reeds ? No hot water can, swathed in a bath towel ? A sense of a great disappointment came over him as he realised where he was, and a shiver ran down his back. A whole half in front of him ; thirteen weeks ; ninety-odd days. Steam rose from his wash basin, into which the boys' maid had poured a few drops of hot water. The longer he watched the steam, the harder it would be to get out of bed, and the water would soon be cold. He threw off his bedclothes, jumped up and suddenly felt cheerful. The chestnut trees across the way were bursting with yellow green shoots. The shadows in the street were moist, pale, purple ones, really rather like the mauve shadows, that Wren put on so boldly with a wet brush ; but not so dark. It was a perfect spring morning and all the summer was before him.
On the ottoman was a brown paper parcel with a label " Denman & Goddard's, Tailors, High Street, Eton." His lounge suit of yesterday had already joined a score of other lounge suits on a wooden slab, down in the underworld of the house. Denis undid the brown paper parcel and took out his Eton clothes. Those black striped trousers were getting a bit short for him ; but he would keep his new pair for every third week. He had been late in growing and had only got into tails last half. Boys under five feet four wore Eton jackets and collars. Denis opened a drawer and found a handful of thin white ties. He cut a tie in half, bored a hole in its middle with a pair of nail scissors, and forced the tie through his stud beneath the ends of the collar. It was quicker than pushing the whole tie round under the