“Why should you?”
“Because it was yours already! It was only for something we were all going to give you because of—because of those cups we got through you—and—and everything else you’ve done for the house, Jan!”
An emotional dog, this Chips, he still had the sense to see that it was not for him to show emotion then, and the self-control to act up to his lights. But he could not help thrusting the packet back towards Jan, as much as to say that it was still his and he must really take it with the good wishes he now needed more than ever. Not a word of the kind from his lips, and yet every syllable in his eyes and gestures. But Jan only shook his head, wheeled round, and stood looking down into the street.
CHAPTER XXIX
CHIPS AND JAN
Anybody entering the room just then would have smelt bad blood between the fellow looking out of the window and the other fellow sitting on the edge of the bed. Jan’s whole attitude was one of injury, and Chips looked thoroughly guilty of a grave offence against the laws of friendship. Even when Jan turned round it was with the glare which is the first skin over an Englishman’s wound; only a hoarse solicitude of tone confessed the wound self-inflicted, and the visitor a bringer of balm hardly to be borne.
“I suppose you know what’s happened, Chips?”
“I don’t know much.”
“Not that I’m—going?”
“That’s about all.”
“Isn’t it enough, Chips?”