The boy seemed to be acquiring virtue as well as sense.
And really he was charming.
So big, truly enormous (every one remarked on it), and yet graceful, lithe, with a smile that could ravish.
And he was distinguished in his bearing.
Without depreciating Samuel in her faithful heart, Constance saw plainly the singular differences between Samuel and the boy.
Save that he was dark, and that his father's 'dangerous look' came into those childish eyes occasionally, Cyril had now scarcely any obvious resemblance to his father.
He was a Baines.
This naturally deepened Constance's family pride.
Yes, he was mysterious to Constance, though probably not more so than any other boy to any other parent.
He was equally mysterious to Samuel, but otherwise Mr. Povey had learned to regard him in the light of a parcel which he was always attempting to wrap up in a piece of paper imperceptibly too small.
When he successfully covered the parcel at one corner it burst out at another, and this went on for ever, and he could never get the string on.
Nevertheless, Mr. Povey had unabated confidence in his skill as a parcel-wrapper.
The boy was strangely subtle at times, but then at times he was astoundingly ingenuous, and then his dodges would not deceive the dullest.
Mr. Povey knew himself more than a match for his son.
He was proud of him because he regarded him as not an ordinary boy; he took it as a matter of course that his boy should not be an ordinary boy.
He never, or very rarely, praised Cyril.
Cyril thought of his father as a man who, in response to any request, always began by answering with a thoughtful, serious
'No, I'm afraid not.'
"So you haven't lost your appetite!" his mother commented.
Cyril grinned.
"Did you expect me to, mother?"
"Let me see," said Samuel, as if vaguely recalling an unimportant fact.
"It's to-day you begin to go to school, isn't it?"
"I wish father wouldn't be such a chump!" Cyril reflected.
And, considering that this commencement of school (real school, not a girls' school, as once) had been the chief topic in the house for days, weeks; considering that it now occupied and filled all hearts, Cyril's reflection was excusable.
"Now, there's one thing you must always remember, my boy," said Mr. Povey. "Promptness.
Never be late either in going to school or in coming home.
And in order that you may have no excuse"--Mr. Povey pressed on the word 'excuse' as though condemning Cyril in advance--"here's something for you!"
He said the last words quickly, with a sort of modest shame.
It was a silver watch and chain.
Cyril was staggered. So also was Constance, for Mr. Povey could keep his own counsel.
At long intervals he would prove, thus, that he was a mighty soul, capable of sublime deeds.
The watch was the unique flowering of Mr. Povey's profound but harsh affection.
It lay on the table like a miracle.
This day was a great day, a supremely exciting day in Cyril's history, and not less so in the history of his parents.
The watch killed its owner's appetite dead.
Routine was ignored that morning.
Father did not go back into the shop.
At length the moment came when father put on his hat and overcoat to take Cyril, and Cyril's watch and satchel, to the Endowed School, which had quarters in the Wedgwood Institution close by.
A solemn departure, and Cyril could not pretend by his demeanour that it was not!
Constance desired to kiss him, but refrained.
He would not have liked it.
She watched them from the window.
Cyril was nearly as tall as his father; that is to say, not nearly as tall, but creeping up his father's shoulder.
She felt that the eyes of the town must be on the pair.
She was very happy, and nervous.
At dinner-time a triumph seemed probable, and at tea-time, when Cyril came home under a mortar-board hat and with a satchel full of new books and a head full of new ideas, the triumph was actually and definitely achieved.
He had been put into the third form, and he announced that he should soon be at the top of it.
He was enchanted with the life of school; he liked the other boys, and it appeared that the other boys liked him.
The fact was that, with a new silver watch and a packet of sweets, he had begun his new career in the most advantageous circumstances.