“It—it was your fault! I—”
Philip Davison came round the corner of the building upon this scene, having heard the blows and the fall. He saw Ben’s cut and quivering lip, his clothing wet and muddy, and Justin standing before him with hot, flushed face.
“You struck Ben?” he cried.
Ben was his pride.
Justin looked at him, after an appealing glance at Ben.
“Yes,” he acknowledged, with humility and a feeling of repentant uneasiness. He had gained Ben’s enmity, and he feared he had lost Philip Davison’s regard, which he valued highly.
Ben was crumpling together the wad of bills, and thrust them into his pocket.
“Yes, he struck me, but I hit him first,” he confessed. “We had a little quarrel, a few words, that’s all.”
Though no larger than Justin, he was older, and it humiliated him to confess even this much.
Davison was annoyed and angry.