Duke of Dorset . . . Why on earth shouldn't he? . . . No, it isn't odd in the least . . . No, I'm NOT losing my temper. Only, don't call me your dear boy . . . No, we will NOT walk slowly so as to let him pass us . . . Jessie, if you look round . . ."
Poor fellow! However fond an undergraduate be of his womenfolk, at Oxford they keep him in a painful state of tension: at any moment they may somehow disgrace him. And if throughout the long day he shall have had the added strain of guarding them from the knowledge that he is about to commit suicide, a certain measure of irritability must be condoned.
Poor Jessie and Aunt Mabel! They were destined to remember that Harold had been "very peculiar" all day. They had arrived in the morning, happy and eager despite the menace of the sky, and—well, they were destined to reproach themselves for having felt that Harold was "really rather impossible." Oh, if he had only confided in them! They could have reasoned with him, saved him—surely they could have saved him! When he told them that the "First Division" of the races was always very dull, and that they had much better let him go to it alone,—when he told them that it was always very rowdy, and that ladies were not supposed to be there—oh, why had they not guessed and clung to him, and kept him away from the river?
Well, here they were, walking on Harold's
