it were submissive, and Somers was put quite off his guard. He began to play with his usual freedom. And then Jack wiped the floor with his little neighbour: simply wiped the floor with him, and left him gasping. One, two, three games—it was the same every time.
"But I can't see the board," cried Somers, startled. "I can hardly distinguish black from white."
He was really distressed. It was true what he said. He was as if stupefied, as if some drug had been injected straight into his brain. For his life he could not gather his consciousness together—not till he realised the state he was in. And then he refused to try. Jack gave a quiet little laugh. There was on his face a subtle little smile of satisfaction. He had done his high-flying opponent down. He was the better man.
After the first evening that this had taken place, Somers was much more wary of his neighbour, much less ready to open towards him than he had been. He never again invited Jack to a game of chess. And when Callcott suggested a game, Somers played, but coldly, without the recklessness and the laughter which were the chief charm of his game. And Jack was once more snubbed, put back into second place. Then once he was reduced, Somers began to relent, and the old guerilla warfare started again.
The moment Somers heard this question of Jack's: "What do you think of things in general?"—he went on his guard.
"The man is trying to draw me, to fool me," he said to himself. He knew by a certain quiet, almost sly intention in Jack's voice, and a certain false deference in his bearing. It was this false deference he was most wary of. This was the Judas approach.
"How in general?" he asked. "Do you mean the cosmos?"
"No," said Jack, foiled in his first move. He had been through the Australian high-school course, and was accustomed to think for himself. Over a great field he was quite indifferent to thought, and hostile to consciousness. It seemed to him more manly to be unconscious, even blank, to most of the great questions. But on his own subjects, Australian politics, Japan, and machinery, he thought straight and manly enough. And when he met a
