“Oh, that’s all right. But I’ve got to study, and I don’t care to be interrupted all the time.”
“Well, just tell me what your theme was about, and I’ll let you alone.”
Lester, enraged by this badgering, brought his fist down on the desk. “No, I won’t tell you what it was about!” he cried. “I won’t tell you anything about it! Mind your own affairs!”
“Oh, very well, then,” retorted Richard. “Since you’re so stuffy about it, I’ll find out all about it. All I have to do is to ask Dawson.”
He felt even in his indignation that he was being childish, and he was unprepared for the sharp, immediate change that his words produced in Lester’s attitude and expression. Lester leaned back in his chair, and the look of sullenness on his face gave way to one of resignation and weariness.
“I’ll tell you all about it, Dick,” he said. “I was hoping I could keep it from you; but it begins to look as if there were no use in trying to keep it from any one. The theme that was read in class was Dave Ives’s, not mine. I took it out of Dave’s room and handed it in as mine. I changed the last page of it. That was how you happened to find that page of Dave’s theme in my waste-basket.”
He realized already that Richard’s reaction to the confession was not at all the same as David’s had been. There was no sign of compassion in Richard’s face, only distress and even repugnance.
“David knows the whole story,” said Lester. “If you want to, you can talk it over with him.”
“I don’t see how you came to do it.”
“Pressure of work that had to be made up—no time to write the theme and it had to be a good one, or else I stayed on probation. I suppose you’d call it just weak and dishonest—as it was.”