CHAPTER II—BUNNING

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      He went into Hall. He sat amongst the particular group of his own year who were considered the elite. There was Cardillac there, brilliant, flashing Cardillac. There was Bobby Galleon, fat, good-natured, sleepy, intelligent in an odd bovine way. There was Craven, young, ardent, hail-fellow-well-met. There was Lawrence, burly back for the University in Rugby, unintelligent, kind and good-tempered unless he were drunk.

      There were others. They all sat in their glory, noisily happy. Somewhere in the distance on a raised dais were the Dons gravely pompous. Every now and again word was brought that the gentlemen were making too much noise. The Master might be observed drinking elaborately, ceremoniously with some guest. Madden, the Service Tutor, flung his shrill treble voice above the general hubbub—

      "But, my dear Ross, if you had only observed—"

      "Where is Carfax?" came suddenly from Lawrence. He asked Craven, who was, of course, the devoted friend of Carfax. Craven had large brown eyes, a charming smile, a prominent chin, rather fat routed cheeks and short brown hair that curled a little. He gave the impression of eager good-temper and friendliness. To-night he looked worried. "I don't know," he said, "I can't understand it. He said this morning that he'd be here to-night and make up a four at Bridge. He went off to see an aunt or some one at Grantchester!"

      "Perhaps," said Bobby Galleon gravely, "he had an exeat and has gone up to town."

      "But he'd have said something—sure. And the porter hasn't seen him. He would have been certain to know."

      Olva was never expected to talk much. His reserve was indeed rather popular. The entirely normal and ordinary men around him appreciated this mystery. "Rum fellow, Dune … nobody knows him." His high dark colour, his dignity, his courtesy had about it something distinguished and romantic. "He'll do something wonderful one day, you bet. Why, if he only chose to play up at footer there's nothing he couldn't do."

      Even the brilliant Cardillac, thin, dark, handsome leader of fashion and society, admitted the charm.

      Now, however, Olva, looking up, quietly said—

      "I expect his aunt's kept him to dinner. He'll turn up."

      But of course he wouldn't turn up. He was lying in the heart of that crushed, dripping fern with his leg doubled under him. It wasn't often that one killed a man with one blow; the signet ring that he wore on the little finger of his right hand—a Dune ring of great antiquity—must have had something to do with it.

      He turned it round thoughtfully on his finger. Robert, an old, old trembling waiter, said in a shaking voice—

      "There's salmi of wild game, sir—roast beef."

      "Beef, please," Olva said quietly.

      He was considering now that all these men would to-morrow night have only one thought, one idea. They would remember everything, the very slightest thing that he had done. They would discuss it all from every possible point of view.

      "I always knew he'd do something. … " He suddenly knew quite sharply, as though a voice had spoken to him, that he could not endure this any longer. There was gathering upon him the conviction that in a few minutes, rising from his place, he would cry out to the hall—"I, Olva Dune, this afternoon, killed Carfax. You will find his body in the wood." He repeated the words to himself under his breath. "You will find his body in the wood. … " "You will find … "

      He finished his beef very quietly and then got up.

      Craven appealed to him. "I say, Dune, do come and make a four—my rooms, half-past eight—Lawrence and Galleon are the other two."

      Olva looked down at him with his grave, rather melancholy smile.

      "Afraid I can't to-night, Craven; must work."

      "Don't overdo it," Cardillac said.

      The eyes of the two men met. Olva knew that Cardillac—"Cards" as he was to his friends, liked him; he himself did not hate Cardillac. He was the only man in the College for whom he had respect. They were both of them demanding the same thing from the world. They both of them despised their fellow-creatures.

      Olva, climbing the stairs to his room, stood for a moment in the dark, before he turned on the lights. He spoke aloud in a whisper, as though some one were with him in the room.

      "This won't do," he said. "This simply won't do. Your nerves are going. You've only got a few hours of it. Hold on—Think of the beast that he was. Think of the beast that he was."

      He walked slowly back to the door and turned on the electric lights. He did not sport his oak—if people came to see him he would rather like it: in some odd way it would be more satisfactory than that he should go to see them—but people did not often come to see him.

      He laid out his books on the table and sat down. He had grown fond of this room. The walls were distempered white. The ceiling was old and black with age. There was a deep red-tiled fireplace. One wall had low brown bookshelves. There were two pictures: one an Around reprint of Matsys' "Portrait of Aegidius"—that wise, kind, tender face; the other an admirable photogravure of Durer's "Selbstbildnis." The books were mainly to do with his favourite historical period—the Later Roman Empire. There was some poetry—an edition of Browning, Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Ernest Dowson, Rossetti, Francis Thompson. There was an edition of Hazlitt, a set of the Spectator, one or two novels, Henry Lessingham and The Roads by Galleon, To Paradise by Lester, Meredith's One of Our Conquerors and Diana of the Crossways, The Ambassadors and Awkward Age of Henry James.