That same evening Charley came to my rooms. His manner was constrained, and yet suggested a whole tide of pent-up friendship which, but for some undeclared barrier, would have broken out and overflowed our intercourse. After this one evening, however, it was some time before I saw him again. When I called upon him next he was not at home, nor did he come to see me. Again I sought him, but with like failure. After a third attempt I desisted, not a little hurt, I confess, but not in the least inclined to quarrel with him. I gave myself the more diligently to my work.
And now Oxford began to do me harm. I saw so much idleness, and so much wrong of all kinds about me, that I began to consider myself a fine exception. Because I did my poor duty--no better than any honest lad must do it--I became conceited; and the manner in which Charley’s new friend treated me not only increased the fault, but aided in the development of certain other stems from the same root of self-partiality. He never saluted me with other than what I regarded as a supercilious nod of the head. When I met him in company with Charley, and the latter stopped to speak to me, he would walk on without the least change of step. The indignation which this conduct aroused drove me to think as I had never thought before concerning my social position. I found it impossible to define. As I pondered, however, a certainty dawned upon me, rather than was arrived at by me, that there was some secret connected with my descent, upon which bore the history of the watch I carried, and of the sword I had lost. On the mere possibility of something, utterly forgetful that, if the secret existed at all, it might be of a very different nature from my hopes, I began to build castles innumerable. Perceiving, of course, that one of a decayed yeoman family could stand no social comparison with the heir to a rich baronetcy, I fell back upon absurd imaginings; and what with the self-satisfaction of doing my duty, what with the vanity of my baby manhood, and what with the mystery I chose to believe in and interpret according to my desires, I was fast sliding into a moral condition contemptible indeed.
But still my heart was true to Charley. When, after late hours of hard reading, I retired at last to my bed, and allowed my thoughts to wander where they would, seldom was there a night on which they did not turn as of themselves towards the memory of our past happiness. I vowed, although Charley had forsaken me, to keep his chamber in my heart ever empty, and closed against the entrance of another. If ever he pleased to return, he should find he had been waited for. I believe there was much of self-pity, and of self-approval as well, mingling with my regard for him; but the constancy was there notwithstanding, and I regarded the love I thus cherished for Charley as the chief saving element in my condition at the time.
