The affliction could not have befallen him at a time when he was less capable of supporting it resignedly.  Notwithstanding his noteworthy success in two classes, it seemed to him that he had lost everything—­that the day was one of signal and disgraceful defeat.  In any case that sequence of second prizes must have filled him with chagrin, but to be beaten thus repeatedly by such a fellow as Bruno Chilvers was humiliation intolerable.  A fopling, a mincer of effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catchwords—­bah!  The by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak always felt that he was not putting forth his strength; when the serious trial came he would show what was really in him.  Too late he recognised his error, though he tried not to admit it.  The extra subjects had exacted too much of him; there was a limit to his powers.  Within the College this would be well enough understood, but to explain a disagreeable fact is not to change it; his name was written in pitiful subordination.  And as for the public assembly—­ he would have sacrificed some years of his life to have stepped forward in facile supremacy, beneath the eyes of those clustered ladies.  Instead of that, they had looked upon his shame; they had interchanged glances of amusement at each repetition of his defeat; had murmured comments in their melodious speech; had ended by losing all interest in him—­as intuition apprised him was the wont of women.

As soon as he had escaped from his uncle, he relapsed into musing upon the position to which he was condemned when the new session came round.  Again Chilvers would be in the same classes with him, and, as likely as not, with the same result.  In the meantime, they were both ‘going in’ for the First B.A.; he had no fear of failure, but it might easily happen that Chilvers would achieve higher distinction.  With an eye to awards that might be won—­substantial cash-annuities—­he was reading for Honours; but it seemed doubtful whether he could present himself, as the second examination was held only in London.  Chilvers would of course be an Honours candidate.  He would smile—­confound him!—­at an objection on the score of the necessary journey to London.  Better to refrain altogether than again to see Chilvers come out ahead.  General surprise would naturally be excited, questions asked on all hands.  How would it sound:  ’I simply couldn’t afford to go up’—?

At this point of the meditation he had reached his lodgings; he admitted himself with a latch-key, turned into his murky sitting-room, and sat down.

The table was laid for tea, as usual.  Though he might have gone to Twybridge this evening, he had preferred to stay overnight, for an odd reason.  At a theatre in Kingsmill a London company, headed by an actress of some distinction, was to perform Romeo and Juliet, and he purposed granting himself this indulgence before leaving the town.  The plan was made when his eye fell upon the advertisement, a few days ago.  He then believed it probable that an evening at the theatre would appropriately follow upon a day of victory.  His interest in the performance had collapsed, but he did not care to alter his arrangements.