and Mrs. Eastcliff's rooms had been prepared for Mr.
Conrad. This announcement (though I tried to seem unmoved) overwhelmed
me with confusion, seeing that the rooms in question almost communicated
with my own. But Martin only laughed and said:
"Stunning! We'll live in this wing of the house and leave the rest of
the old barracks to the cats, should we?"
I was tingling with joy, but all the same I knew that a grim battle was
before me.
SIXTY-FOURTH CHAPTER
By the time he returned from his room I had tea served in my boudoir,
and while we sat facing the open door to the balcony he told me about
his visit to his old school; how at the dinner on the previous night
the Principal had proposed his health, and after the lads had sung
"Forty Years On" he had told them yarns about his late expedition until
they made the long hiss of indrawn breath which is peculiar to boys when
they are excited; how they had followed him to his bedroom as if he had
been the Pied Piper of Hamelin and questioned him and clambered over him
until driven off by the house-master; and how, finally, before he was
out of bed this morning the smallest scholar in the junior house, a tiny
little cherub with the face of his mother, had come knocking at his door
to ask if he wanted a cabin boy.
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