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So I came and reclined on the ground by Edgar, intruding myself on his notice by asking: "That beastly tapeworm Freedham spoilt your game, didn't he?" Edgar heard my question, and his lips fumbled with a reply. The face that he turned upon me was a deep plum-pink from recent running and surmounted with fair hair whose disordered ends were darkened with moisture.
And now came the gift of faith. It was born of my sharp jealousy, my present weariness of Pennybet, and my heroic resolution to rescue Doe from the degenerate hands of Freedham. Only go nobly to someone's assistance, and you will love him for ever. Love! It was an unusual word for a shy boy to admit into his thoughts, but I was even taking a defiant and malicious pleasure in using it.
He came away from the window and sat in a chair opposite me. "It was because I was glowing with a new resolution. It was the rippingest feeling in the world. I I had just decided to cut with Freedham." Up to this point I had been looking into his face, but now I turned away. Instinctively I felt that, if he were going to, speak of his transactions with Freedham, he would be abashed by my gaze.
At any rate, he is two forms ahead of Penny and me, and has joined the Intellectuals. He has views on the Pre-Raphaelites, Romanticism, and the Housing Question. Maybe, too, I have been very willing for the quarrel to proceed, because he will persist in his collusion with that mystery-man, Freedham.
Quickly I reached the railings, raised myself to the top, and glanced down the road in time to see Doe join the lank and sinister figure of Freedham at the corner. But alas! just over the road was Bramhall House, Fillet's own kingdom, and even at that moment I saw a bald head emerge from its central doorway.
"Oh, dash!" concentrated my attention on the cricket. A few minutes later the heavy wooden rail on which I was leaning began to vibrate horribly. I looked in alarm at Freedham. He was standing rigid, as though sudden death had stiffened him upright. His left hand was grasping the railing, and through this channel an electric trembling of his whole frame had communicated itself to the wood.
I fear I'm a very ignoble character, for this conversation, instead of filling me with pain at Doe's deviations, only gave me a selfish elation in the thought that I had utterly routed my shadowy rival, Freedham, and won back my brilliant twin, who could talk thus familiarly about mysticism. And now there only remained the very concrete Fillet to be driven in disorder from the field.
"When you're my age, Rupert," began Penny, in kind and accommodating explanation, "you'll know that there are such things as degenerates and decadents. Freedham is one. And very soon Doe will be another." "Well, hang it," I said, "if you think that, how can you joke about it, and leave him to go his way?" "Oh, the young fellow must learn wisdom. And he's not in any danger of being copped.
Through my closed lids I saw a yellow atmosphere that was fast whitening. It seemed to smell very sweet; and the sensation of seeing it and smelling it was intoxicatingly delightful. It was like an opiate. What Freedham was doing in the atmosphere I know not, but I saw him, as one would in a dream.
There, far ahead of us, was Doe in the company of Freedham, with whom he was turning into a doorway. A pang of jealousy stabbed me, and with a throb, that was as pleasing as painful, I realised that I loved Doe as Orestes loved Pylades. The truth is this: ever since our form had been engaged on Cicero's "De Amicitia," I had wanted to believe that my friendship for Doe was on the classical models.
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