“You don’t?  But surely your mother takes you——­”

“I haven’t got a mother.”  His voice sounded in his own ears like a shout.  He scowled down at the faces nearest him.  He was ready to fight them now.  If they were going to say anything about his mother, good or bad, he would fly at them, just as he had flown at his old aggressors in the Terrace, regardless of size and numbers.

“Your father, then?”

“I haven’t got a father.”

His questioner smiled faintly, not without asperity.

“Come, come, you are not yet a gentleman in independent circumstances.  Who takes care of you?”

“Christine.”

“And who, pray, is Christine?”

Who was Christine?  It was as though suddenly the corner of a curtain had been raised for a moment, letting him look through into a strange new country.

“I don’t know.”

The clergyman waved his hand, damping down the titters that spluttered up nervously, threatening to explode outright.  He himself had an air of slight dishevelment, as though his ideas had been blown about by a rude wind.

“I remember—­Mr. Morton spoke to me—­your guardian, of course.  You should answer properly.  But still, surely you have been taught—­some religious instruction.  You say your prayers, don’t you?”

“No.”  He added after a moment of sudden, vivid recollection:  “Not now.”

It was nothing short of a debacle.  He had pulled out the keystone of an invisible edifice which had come tumbling about their ears, leaving him in safety.  Without knowing how or why, he knew he had got the better of them all.  The grins died out of the upturned faces.  They looked at him with amazement, with horror, yes—­with respect.

“But you have been taught your catechism—­to—­to believe in God?”

“No.”

“But the hymn—­at least you could have sung the hymn, my poor boy.  You can read, can’t you?”

“No.”

The awe passed before a storm of unchecked laughter.  For one spectacular moment he had held them all helpless, every one of them, by the sheer audacity of his admissions.  Now with one word he had fallen—­an ignominious, comic outcast.  The clergyman turned away, shaken but satisfied.

“You have a great deal to learn.  I doubt if Mr. Morton quite realized——­ A heavy task in front of you, too, Mr. Ricardo.  One word, please——­”

They spoke in undertones.  Robert slid back into his seat.  He could feel exultant glances sting and pierce him on every side.  And yet when the door closed he had to look up.  He was driven by a relentless curiosity to meet the worst.  Mr. Ricardo had resumed his place.  He did not so much as glance at Robert.  He clung on to the lapels of his coat and blinked up at the window as though nothing had happened.  But there was something impish twitching at the corners of his nervous mouth.

“My delightful young friends,” he said, “you will be kind enough to leave Stonehouse in peace both now and hereafter.  I know your amiable propensities, and my own conviction is that he is probably worth the pack of you.  Get out your history books——­”