refuge of a moody
solitude. That encounter with his objectionable uncle after the prize
distribution at Whitelaw showed how much Godwin had lost of the natural vigour
which declared itself at Andrew Peak's second visit to Twybridge, when the boy
certainly would not have endured his uncle's presence but for hospitable
considerations and the respect due to his mother. The decision with which he
then unbosomed himself to Oliver, still characterised his thoughts, but he had
not courage to elude the dialogue forced upon him, still less to make known his
resentment of the man's offensive vulgarity. He endured in silence, his heart
afire with scornful wrath.
    The affliction could not have befallen him at a time when he was less
capable of supporting it resignedly, Notwithstanding his noteworthy success in
two classes, it seemed to him that he had lost everything - that the day was one
of signal and disgraceful defeat. In any case that sequence of second prizes
must have filled him with chagrin, but to be beaten thus repeatedly by such a
fellow as Bruno Chilvers was humiliation intolerable. A fopling, a mincer of
effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catch-words - bah! The
by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak always felt that he
was not putting forth his strength; when the serious trial came he would show
what was really in him. Too late he recognised his error, though he tried not to
admit it. The extra subjects had exacted too much of him; there was a limit to
his powers. Within the College this would be well enough understood, but to
explain a disagreeable fact is not to change it; his name was written in pitiful
subordination. And as for the public assembly - he would have sacrificed some
years of his life to have stepped forward in facile supremacy, beneath the eyes
of those clustered ladies. Instead of that, they had looked upon his shame; they
had interchanged glances of amusement at each repetition of his defeat; had
murmured comments in their melodious speech; had ended by losing all interest in
him - as intuition apprised him was the wont of women.
    As soon as he had escaped from his uncle, he relapsed into musing upon the
position to which he was condemned when the new session came round. Again
Chilvers would be in the same classes with him, and, as likely as not, with the
same result. In the meantime, they were both going in for the First B.A.; he had
no fear of failure, but it might easily happen that Chilvers would achieve
higher distinction. With an eye to