“I say, I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “I bang forgot. Give it me!”
But Maddox still held it, looking at him.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just having a bath, were you?”
David paused. There was Maddox only looking at him, only smiling. But instantly he had some sense of choking discomfort. He looked back at him, frowning and puzzled, and his sense of discomfort hugely increased. He merely wanted to get away.
“Oh then, I think I’ll go and dress,” he said hurriedly, and, picking up his sponge, left the room and ran away down the dark passage to his dormitory.
David sat down on his bed for a minute, feeling as if he had escaped from some distant nightmare that had vaguely threatened to come near him. Then, very sensibly, running away from it instead of thinking about it, he began to dress in a great hurry. He washed his hands over again, went on rubbing his hair, did anything to occupy himself. In a few minutes Bags came in dressed from his dormitory next door, but David had no voluble conversation on hand, as he had half an hour ago in the fives-court, and continued dressing in silence. Bags tried a few amiable topics, but got no more response than grunts and monosyllables, which were quite unlike David’s usually rampageous loquacity. After three or four thwarted attempts it was borne in upon his lucid mind that there was something the matter.
“What’s up, Blazes?” he inquired.
“Nothing. Why?” said David savagely.