instance, looked at James and sighed and hoped that he would one day hear the call of the church. She made allowances for James which she never made for the other boys. If it looked as if some little domestic crime were about to be traced to James, further inquiries were usually suspended. That he might ever have been hounded into such an affair as that of the Dresden china urn was unthinkable.
If James had expressed the wish to become a sailor or a farmer he would have been listened to with toleration and even respect. But James had no particular wish to become anything or anyone in particular. At school he had a number of intimates but was not generally liked. He and his intimates thought a good deal about clothes and appearances. With regards to the ordinary schoolboy sports they affected a certain cynicism. Their conversation was largely given to grown-up topics. They took a precocious interest in sex. If their humor had been original it would have been Rabelaisian.
But Mrs. Eaton, who of course did not know the whole of James' shortcomings, made much of him, and so far as it was possible for a disciplinarian of her egotism, spoiled him. The secret was not hard to come at. James was in no way effeminate, but being a sensualist in the making, he was
