Evangeline Fish began to pursue William.  She grudged him bitterly to Bettine.  She pirouetted near him in her sky-blue garments, she tossed her ringlets about him.  She ogled him with her pale blue eyes.

And in the long school hours during which he dreamed at his desk, or played games with his friends, while highly-paid instructors poured forth their wisdom for his benefit, William evolved a plan.  Unfortunately, like most plans, it required capital, and William had no capital.  Occasionally William’s elder brother Robert would supply a few shillings without inconvenient questions, but it happened that Robert was ignoring William’s existence at that time.  For Robert had (not for the first time) discovered his Ideal, and the Ideal had been asked to lunch the previous week.  For days before Robert had made William’s life miserable.  He had objected to William’s unbrushed hair and unmanicured hands, and untidy person, and noisy habits.  He had bitterly demanded what She would think on being asked to a house where she might meet such an individual as William; he had insisted that William should be taught habits of cleanliness and silence before She came; he had hinted darkly that a man who had William for a brother was hampered considerably in his love affairs because She would think it was a queer kind of family where anyone like William was allowed to grow up.  He had reserved some of his fervour for the cook.  She must have a proper lunch—­not stews and stuff they often had—­there must be three vegetables and there must be cheese straws.  Cook must learn to make better cheese straws.  And William, having swallowed insults for three whole days, planned vengeance.  It was a vengeance which only William could have planned or carried out.  For only William could have seized a moment just before lunch when the meal was dished up and cook happened to be out of the kitchen to carry the principal dishes down to the coal cellar and conceal them beneath the best nuts.

It is well to draw a veil over the next half-hour.  Both William and the meal had vanished.  Robert tore his hair and appealed vainly to the heavens.  He hinted darkly at suicide.  For what is cold tongue and coffee to offer to an Ideal?  The meal was discovered during the afternoon in its resting-place and given to William’s mongrel, Jumble, who crept about during the next few days in agonies of indigestion.  Robert had bitterly demanded of William why he went about the world spoiling people’s lives and ruining their happiness.  He had implied that when William met with the One and Only Love of his Life he need look for no help or assistance from him (Robert), because he (William) had dashed to the ground his (Robert’s) cup of happiness, because he’d never in his life met anyone before like Miss Laing, and never would again, and he (William) had simply condemned him to a lonely and miserable old age, because who’d want to marry anyone that asked them to lunch and then gave them coffee and