“You’re dippy about him; you take it worse than he would himself!” Wallace’s manner had become resentful instead of appealing.
“I can’t help it, Lester. Here’s a thing that I’ve found out about you, and I’ve got to be honest and tell you how it’s made me feel.”
“All right; it’s just the opinion of a prig. I guess you’re right in leaving; you’re too good to live in this school.”
Wallace’s voice had grown suddenly bitter with anger, and his eyes, raised at last to meet David’s fairly, were hard and bright.
“Well,” said David flushing, “perhaps I am a prig. Anyway, you can’t be more disappointed in me than I am in you.”
The study bell rang out; David wheeled and walked briskly to the schoolroom while Wallace followed at a slower pace. In the hour of study David’s thoughts kept straying from his books. He knew now that he had hoped Wallace might have some explanation, some defense. His little world was in ruins, and he had done his best. He was not sure that he had not been the prig that Wallace styled him. Anyway, it was the end of friendship between him and Wallace—and that meant the end of his term at St. Timothy’s School.
That evening after supper Clarence Monroe brought David word that Mr. Dean would like to see him at his house for a few minutes. He found the master lying on his lounge, with his hands under his head.
“I was fortunate enough to learn a lot of poetry in my youth,” said Mr. Dean when David entered. “It helps me now to while away the time, and passages that I thought I had long since forgotten keep coming back to me. Of course there are gaps, and it’s very trying not to be able to fill them at once—to have to wait until I can find some one to look the missing lines up for me. Just now I’ve been dredging my memory in vain; do you remember the lines:
“Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods