“I guess you didn’t let him see what a skunk he is,” Wallace grumbled, and David replied:
“You know I don’t think he’s anything of the kind.”
“Monroe thinks he is,” declared Wallace with satisfaction. “I don’t see why they keep an old fossil like that on here. You can stand up for him, of course, because you’re one of his favorites; he’s a great fellow for having pets.”
David walked away without making any retort. He was depressed and disappointed. He had not believed Wallace could be so unjust. His sense of obligation to Wallace’s father made his distress all the more keen. It was not only Wallace that blamed him; Monroe also was cool to him and thought that he could have made things right with Mr. Dean if he had chosen to exert himself.
For a few days they let him alone, and he was quite unhappy. Then came the night of the gymnasium exhibition; he sat among the spectators and saw Monroe execute his various acrobatic feats in partnership with Calvert, a stripling of the fourth form; it was a creditable performance, but not what it would have been with Wallace to assist. Nevertheless the applause was generous, and Monroe was awarded a medal—first prize—for his work. This success apparently took the soreness out of Monroe; at any rate, he responded heartily to David’s congratulations afterwards and resumed his old friendly relations with him, as if they had never been interrupted. But Wallace’s stiffness did not relax; he did not drop into David’s room, or do any of the little things that had formerly been the natural signs and consequences of intimacy.
For David those were the dullest days of the year. The weather was so bad that there were no outdoor sports; on account of Wallace’s attitude he could not thoroughly enjoy the companionship of any one, for somehow the friendship of no one else could compensate him for the loss of Wallace’s.
And then, too, there was the sense that to Wallace indirectly, to Wallace’s father certainly, he was under an obligation that he could never repay. It made him unhappy to dwell on those thoughts, and so he occupied himself as much as possible with his studies and with reading; and he went more often to Mr. Dean’s rooms. He and the master took walks together; in the evening sometimes Mr. Dean summoned David from the schoolroom and asked him to read aloud; it would be usually from something that David enjoyed—Thackeray or Dickens or Shakespeare. Mr. Dean would sit in an armchair before the fire, with his green eye-shade over his eyes and his fingers interlocked; sometimes he would chuckle over a phrase, or ask David to read a passage a second time; and David, thus having his attention particularly drawn to those passages, was not long in seeing why they were noteworthy. Those evenings with Mr. Dean were the most pleasant of his diversions, though they did not tend to increase his popularity. He knew that he was growing more and more to be regarded as a grind and, worse than that, as a master’s protégé.
Ruth took him to drive one day when the first breath of spring was in the air.
“Oh,” said Ruth, “won’t you be glad when it’s summer again? Don’t you get restless at this time of year?”