Richard perceived uneasily how fatal it would be to live enslaved by the notion that he had lost all right to resent. Undoubtedly he ought to have had it out with old Gryce there and then at the breakfast table. Too late now....
And here was the Redbury’s house with blinds all lowered. He rang the bell; and waiting on the doorstep, tried to break up his face every time it stiffened into a set shape appropriate to the business in hand.
“Is Mr David in?”
David, in second-lieutenant’s khaki sobered by a black mourning band on the sleeve, hardly looked up from his puttees at Richard’s entrance; and when the first apathetic “Hullo!” was over, there seemed nothing more to be said. The room was in semi-darkness, and the very slant of sunshine through the chinks was furtive.
“What on earth have you come for?” David burst out at last irritably. “To express your sincere sympathy with me in my great bereavement? Then for the Lord’s sake, express it—if you can—and get it over, and be natural. You make me nervous, standing about as though you had changed into a black tie before coming out, which I wonder you haven’t!”
Richard in his turn got thoroughly bad-tempered. The walk had been hot and dusty, and there was the episode of Mr Gryce that morning, and—and Con was dead. And now David merely jeered at him.
“All right—I’m going; you needn’t worry. I didn’t come here for fun, they made me.”
David laughed uproariously. “That’s better; that’s more the little Richard we know and love!”
Richard grunted, and banged himself into a chair. He understood now.... David’s noisy laughter had shown him.
“When did you get your commission?”