himself, and he still made a point of raking dead leaves over the scorched roots. He was too conscious of his weakness to risk provoking opposition as yet, but the day would come—of that he was confident—and he went back to his books and solitary dialogues with renewed concentration.
The only outward sign of a growing self-reliance was a new indifference to companionship of the only sort available. Even his regard for Phœbe Meddar became a half symbolic sentiment which played the rôle of a kindly moon as contrasted with the burnished sun of his mental activity. He could dispense with the society of boys who had had little to offer in return for the painstaking efforts he had made to get on a footing with them. He no longer hovered on the edge of the circle. He drew a circle of his own, somewhat superciliously, and with a tinge of bitterness noticed that no one but Mark Laval sought the privilege of stepping inside its circumference—Mark whose value was largely discounted, even while it was enhanced, by his uncritical devotion. Not even Mark could reach the centre of the circle, and Paul often voluntarily stepped over the line, carrying his best ideas into a territory more accessible to his uncouth friend. In this act he was making a sincere attempt to live down an accusation of Mark's which he had at first resented; his wider reading had proved to him not only that he had been narrow-minded, as Mark had alleged, but that the gaining of the whole world was positively contingent upon his becoming broad-minded. He felt like a mole, burrowing steadily towards the light, yet still embedded in deep strata of inherited prejudice. His only tools were his critical claws, and he dug the more fiercely to sharpen them.
There had been some talk of his entering a Baptist preparatory school in Wolfville. At first he had favoured the project, welcoming the breath of adventure implied
