After the first glad days of the home-coming, the lack of education and
taste, and the habits that this lack engendered, jarred more and more
upon Caius. He loved his parents too well to betray his just distress at
the narrow round of thought and feeling in which their minds
revolved--the dogmatism of ignorance on all points, whether of social
custom or of the sublime reaches of theology; but this distress became
magnified into irritation, partly because of this secrecy, partly
because his mind, wearied by study, had not its most wholesome balance.
Jim Hogan at this time made overtures of renewed friendship to Caius.
Jim was the same as of old--athletic, quick-witted, large and strong,
with his freckled face still innocent of hair; the red brush stood up
over his unnaturally high forehead in such fashion as to suggest to the
imaginative eye that wreath of flame that in some old pictures is
displayed round the heads of villains in the infernal regions. Jim was
now the acknowledged leader of the young men of that part who were not
above certain low and mischievous practices to which Caius did not dream
of condescending. Caius repulsed the offer of friendship extended to
him.
The households with which his parents were friendly made great
merrymakings over his return. Dancing was forbidden, but games in which
maidens might be caught and kissed were not.
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