There were no lessons that morning, naturally
— another grievance ! The fitness of things
required that we should have struggled to the
last in a confused medley of moods and tenses,
and parted for ever, flushed with hatred, over

the dismembered corpse of the multiplication-

196



•EXIT TYRANNUS'

table. But this thing was not to be ; and 1
was free to stroll by myself through the garden,
and combat, as best I might, this growing
feeling of depression. It was a wrong system
altogether, I thought, this going of people one
had got used to. Things ought always to
continue as they had been. Change there
must be, of course ; pigs, for instance, came
and went with disturbing frequency —

' Fired their ringing shot and passed,
Hotly charged and sank at last' —

but Nature had ordered it so, and in requital
had provided for rapid successors. Did you
come to love a pig, and he was taken from
you, grief was quickly assuaged in the delight
of selection from the new litter. But now,
when it was no question of a peerless pig, but
only of a governess. Nature seemed helpless, and
the future held no litter of oblivion. Things
might be better, or they might be worse, but
they would never be the same ; and the innate
conservatism of youth asks neither poverty nor

riches, but only immunity from change.
197



THE GOLDEN AGE

Edward slouched up alongside of me pre-
sently, with a hangdog look on him, as if he
had been caught stealing jam. ' What a lark
it '11 be when she 's really gone ! ' he observed,
with a swagger obviously assumed.
' Grand fun ! ' I replied dolorously ; and con-
versation flagged.
