He entered with a lighted candle. The noise of the opening window and the footsteps had, no doubt, disturbed him for some time. Yet, quickly as he came, Goldie and I were “asleep” even before he had time to cross the threshold. Julius stood alone to face him in the middle of the floor. It was characteristic of the boy. He never shirked.
“What’s the meaning of all this noise?” asked Martin, obviously pleased to find himself in a position of unexpected advantage. “LeVallon, why are you not in bed? And why is the window open?”
Secretly ashamed of myself, I lay under the sheets, wondering what Julius would answer.
“We always sleep with the window open, sir,” he said quietly.
“What was that crash I heard?” asked the master, coming farther into the room, and holding the candle aloft so that it showed every particle of the broken glass. “Who did this?” He glanced suspiciously about him, knowing of course that Julius was not the only culprit.
LeVallon stood there, looking straight at him. Martin--as I think of the incident to-day--had the appearance of a weasel placed by chance in a position of advantage, yet afraid of its adversary. He winced, yet exulted.
“Do you realise that it’s long after eleven,” he observed frigidly, “and that I shall be obliged to report you to Dr. Randall in the morning....”
“It’s very serious,” continued Martin, more excitedly, and apparently uncertain how to drive home his advantage, “it’s very distressing--er--to find you, LeVallon, Head of the School, guilty of mischief like a Fourth-Form boy--at this hour of the night too!”
The reference to the lower form was, of course, intended to be crushing. But Julius in his inimitable way turned the tables astonishingly.
“Very good, sir,” he said calmly, “but I was only trying to get the light of Venus, and her sound, into Goldingham’s head--into his system, that is--by reflecting it in the looking-glass; and it fell off the ledge. It’s an experiment of antiquity, as you know, sir. I’m exceedingly sorry....”
Martin stared. He was a little afraid of LeVallon; the boy’s knowledge of mathematics had compelled his admiration as often as his questions, sometimes before the whole class, had floored him.
“It’s an old experiment,” the boy added, his pale face very grave, “healing, you know, sir, by the rays of the planets--forgotten star-worship--like the light-cures of to-day----”