The Queens Cup | Page 2

you know, in stringing them together. A fellow may be a duffer
generally and yet turn out Latin verse better than fellows who are vastly
superior to him on other points. It was regarded as certain that I should
gain that. No one had intended to go in against me, but at the last
moment he put his name down, and, to the astonishment of everyone,
won in a canter.
"We left about the same time, and went up to Oxford together, but to
different Colleges. I rowed in my College Eight, he in his. We were
above them on the river, but they made a bump every night until they
got behind us, and then bumped us. He was stroke of his boat, and
everyone said that success was due to his rowing, and I believe it was. I
did not so much mind that, for my line was chiefly sculling. I had won
in my own College, and entered for Henley, where it was generally
thought that I had a fair chance of winning the Diamonds. However, I
heard a fortnight before the entries closed that he was out on the river
every morning sculling. I knew what it was going to be, and was not
surprised when his name appeared next to mine in the entries.
"We were drawn together, and he romped in six lengths ahead of me,
though curiously enough he was badly beaten in the final heat. He
stroked the University afterwards. Though I was tried I did not even get
a seat in the eight, contrary to general expectation, but I know that it
was his influence that kept me out of it.
"We had only one more tussle, and again I was worsted. I went in for
the Newdigate--that is the English poetry prize, you know. I had always
been fond of stringing verses together, and the friends to whom I
showed my poem before sending it in all thought that I had a very good
chance. I felt hopeful myself, for I had not heard that he was thinking
of competing, and, indeed, did not remember that he had ever written a
line of verse when at school. However, when the winner was declared,
there was his name again.
"I believe that it was the disgust I felt at his superiority to me in
everything that led me to ask my father to get me a commission at once,
for it seemed to me that I should never succeed in anything if he were
my rival. Since then our lives have been altogether apart, although I

have met him occasionally. Of course we speak, for there has never
been any quarrel between us since that fight, but I know that he has
never forgiven me, and I have a sort of uneasy conviction that some
day or other we shall come into contact again.
"I am sure that if we meet again he will do me a bad turn if possible. I
regard him as being in some sort of way my evil genius. I own that it is
foolish and absurd, but I cannot get over the feeling."
"Oh, it is absurd, Captain Mallett," the girl said. "He may have beaten
you in little things, but you won the Victoria Cross in the Crimea, and
everyone knows that you are one of the best shots in the country, and
that before you went away you were always in the first flight with the
hounds."
"Ah, you are an enthusiast, Bertha. I don't say that I cannot hold my
own with most men at a good many things where not brains, but brute
strength and a quick eye are the only requisites, but I am quite
convinced that if that fellow had been in the Redan that day, he would
have got the Victoria Cross, and I should not. There is no doubt about
his pluck, and if it had only been to put me in the shade he would have
performed some brilliant action or other that would have got it for him.
He is a better rider than I am, at any rate a more reckless one, and he is
a better shot, too. He is incomparably more clever."
"I cannot believe it, Captain Mallett."
"It is quite true, Bertha, and to add to it all, he is a remarkably
handsome fellow, a first-rate talker, and when he pleases can make
himself wonderfully popular."
"He must be a perfect Crichton, Captain Mallett."
"The worst of it is, Bertha, although I am ashamed of myself for
thinking so, I have never been able to divest myself of the idea that he
did not play fair. There were two or three queer things that happened at
school in which he was always