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By Root 839 0

and set foot within the door before hurrying off to his next task. He had lately achieved the less restricted status of a senior boy and when free from lessons wandered about at will. It was an evening early in the autumn term, shortly before seven, when Michael working alone in his room heard a knock at his door and opened it to find Nick. It was the first time that the boy had appeared uninvited. He asked to borrow a book and disappeared at once, but it seemed to Michael, looking back, that they had both found it hard to conceal their emotion, and that they had both from that moment known what was bound to happen. Nick came again, this time after supper. He brought the book back, and they talked of it for ten minutes. He borrowed another. It became a custom that he would drop in sometimes in the interval between supper and bed. The gas fire purred in Michael's small room. Outside were the darkening October evenings. The twilight lingered, the lamp was switched on.

Michael knew what he was doing. He knew that he was playing with fire. Yet it still seemed to him that he would escape unscathed. The whole thing was still, in appearance, innocent, and had a sort of temporary character about it which seemed to reduce its dangers. Until half term, until the end of term. Next term the time-table would be different, Michael might have to move his room. Every meeting was a sort of good-bye; and in any case nothing happened. The boy dropped in, they talked of casual matters, they discussed his work. He read assiduously the books which Michael lent him and obviously profited from the conversations. He never stayed very long.

One evening after Nick had come Michael let the twilight linger and darken in the room. Their talk went on as the light faded, and without seeming to notice they talked on into the dark. So strong was the spell that Michael dared not reach his hand out to the lamp. He was sitting in his low armchair and the boy was sprawled on the floor at his feet. Nick, who had stayed longer than usual, stretched and yawned and said he must be off. He sat up and began to make some observation about an argument which they had had in class. As he spoke he laid his hand upon Michael's knee. Michael made no move. He answered the boy who in a moment withdrew his hand, rose and took his leave.

After he had gone Michael sat quite still for a long time in the dark. He knew in that moment that he was lost: the touch of Nick's hand had given to him a joy so intense, he would have wished to say so pure, if the word had not here rung a little strangely. It was an experience such that remembering it, even many years later, he could tremble and feel, in spite of everything, that absolute joy again. Sitting now in his room, his eyes closed, his body limp, he understood that it was not in his nature to resist the lure of a delight so exquisite. What he would do or in what way it would be wrong he did not permit himself to reflect. A mist of emotion, which he did not attempt to dispel, hid from him the decision which he was taking: which indeed it seemed to him he had taken by letting Nick, without comment or withdrawal, lay his hand upon him. He knew that he was lost, and in making the discovery knew that he had in fact been lost for a long time. By a dialectic well known to those who habitually succumb to temptation he passed in a second from the time when it was too early to struggle to the time when it was too late to struggle.

Nick came the next day. Both of them, meanwhile, had been busy in imagination. They were far on. Michael did not rise from his chair. Nick knelt down before him. They stared steadily at each other, unsmiling. Then Nick gave him both his hands. Michael held them tightly, almost violently, for a moment, drawing the boy closer to him as he did so. He was rigid with the effort to prevent himself from trembling. Nick was pale, solemn, his eyes riveted upon Michael, radiant with the desire to beseech and to dominate. Michael released him and leaned back. It was as if a long time had passed. Nick relaxed upon the floor,