so intimately dear to him was at stake.
“Will you shut the door a minute, David?” he said, rising and standing by the mantel-piece, with his face turned away.
David did so, and remained by the door.
“I want to say just one thing,” said Maddox. “I’m damned sorry, and I apologise. You needn’t be frightened of me. It shan’t happen again. That’s all. There’s nothing to wash up: I haven’t had tea.”
Some subconscious horror still lingered in David’s mind. He had been obliged to come back here, to see to Maddox’s washing-up, else perhaps Maddox would have sent for him, and that would have been worse. At the moment he had no other desire, in spite of what Maddox had said, but to get away.
“I’ll go then,” he said quickly.
“All right.”
David left the room, but he had gone only a little way down the passage outside, when his feet simply refused to carry him any farther, or to allow him to leave Maddox like this. All his love and his loyalty insisted that he was wrong not to trust the regret and the assurance that had been given him, that he was doing a mean and cowardly thing to retreat like that. But the talk that he had had with the Head on his last day at Helmsworth was very vivid in his mind; the Head had told him there was no use in arguing about certain things, and his instinct, in spite of his innocence, told him that such, vaguely and distantly, were the things about which the Head had spoken. But the Head had never told him to turn his back on a friend, or to refuse to trust that which his heart knew was sincere. And so once more from inside Maddox heard a familiar step return and once more David tapped and entered.
“I don’t know why I went away,” he said, “or why I was frightened when you said I needn’t be. So—so I came back. Sorry.”
Then he had the instant reward of his confidence. He saw Maddox look up at him with unshadowed eyes of affection. He came and stood close to him.
“It’s bang all right,” he said. “I’m—I’m awfully glad it’s all right.”
Then a positive inspiration seized him. There was nothing more to be said on this subject, and the sooner it was dismissed the better. He instantly became Maddox’s fag again.
“I say, you’re awfully late having tea,” he said. “Why, your kettle’s not boiling any longer.”
Maddox followed his lead.
“No, I took it off and forgot,” he said. “Put it on again. And there’s a cake in the parcel Bags brought. Take it out, will you?”
David tore open the bag. “Two cakes,” he said. “Which do you want now?”
“Either. You can stop and have tea with me if you like.”
“Thanks awfully, but I had tea with a chap in college.”
“Well, have another.”
David considered this proposition simply on its own merits.
“Well, I think I will,” he said. “But you’ve got a rotten fire. Shan’t I take your kettle to the gas-stove?”
“Yes; good egg. Pour a little into the teapot first, though. Hi! Not over my fingers.”
“Sorry. It didn’t really touch you, did it?”
Maddox laughed.
“No, of course not. I should have smacked your head if it had. Thought it was going to.”
“Just for safety,” said David. “I always swear before I’m hurt. Then they take more care.”
“Yes; stick my kettle bang in the middle of the gas-stove. Say it’s mine if any one objects.”
“Right,” said David. “It’ll be boiled in two shakes.”
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