Instead of one teacher, they had a dozen at least, few of whom gave instruction in more than a single subject.  It smacked of university and made the boys feel much advanced.  The curriculum showed an imposing array of new subjects—­Latin, French, universal history, physics, chemistry, and so on.  Their novelty caught and carried Keith for a good while.

Latin was still the most important study of all.  It was taught by the Rector himself, who worshipped everything classic with a religious devotion and who maintained in so many words that a man’s culture was measured by his mastery of the Roman tongue.  In the lower grades it had been spoken of with bated breath.  Keith had looked forward to the first lesson with trembling impatience.  He plunged into the declination of mensa with the fervour of a convert.  He translated the text-book’s colomba est timida with a sense of performing a sacred rite.  Days went by before he dared to admit to himself that his interest was waning,

Even then he went on studying without a thought of rebellion.  The habit of application had become deeply rooted.  The pride born out of his first easy successes still had urged him to master any subject offered.  But there was a change in his manner of studying as well as in his general attitude toward the school.  Until then he had been an acolyte in sacred precincts.  Now he turned gradually into a time-server doing his duty out of vanity and a desire to remain a public school pupil.  Until then he had never felt that he had to study.  Now fear of the old Rector and of his father entered more and more as conscious motives.

He missed the kind guidance of Dally.  The Rector never became the soul and guardian of the class in the manner of Dally.  The other teachers came and went without other interest than to insure a decent showing in their respective subjects.  All had favourites chosen from those pupils who showed most aptitude for mathematics, natural history or whatever it happened to be.  No one was interested in the class as a whole, and no one cared for its individual members as human beings in the make.  Within a short time Keith was simply drifting, although neither he nor those appointed to guide him were aware of it at the time.

XV

Keith took a liking to George Murray from the start.  During the first couple of days he looked at him frequently as if to invite acquaintance, but the other boy always appeared deeply attentive to the subject of the hour.  During the pauses he withdrew into a corner as if to forestall possible advances.  At the end of the second day Keith and Murray reached the stairway simultaneously and started for the street side by side.  Murray’s pale, aristocratic and very narrow face with unduly prominent teeth still bore a look of indifference, but his attitude had lost a little of its previous stiffness.

“Where do you live,” Keith ventured with for him rare forwardness.