“Yes, Fred, my business,” he said, quietly, with a touch of sadness in his tone.
“Then let me tell you,” I exclaimed, forgetting everything but my resentment, “I don’t intend to be told my duty by you of all people!”
It was enough. He knew the meaning of those cowardly words. His face turned suddenly pale, and his eyes dropped, as with a half-groan he started to walk slowly on.
I would have given worlds to recall the words—worlds to be able to seize his arm and beg his forgiveness. But my wicked vanity kept me back, and I let him go on alone. Then I followed. It was the first of many, many sad, solitary walks for me.
Chapter Twenty One.
How a Door closed between my Friend Smith and me.
If any one had told me a month before that I should quarrel with my friend Smith, I should have laughed at the bare idea. But now the impossible thing had happened.
That night as I lay awake in my bed I felt that I had not a friend in the world. I had wounded, in the cruellest way, the only true friend I ever had, and now I was to suffer for it. The words had come hastily and thoughtlessly, but they had come; and Jack, I knew, regarded me as a coward and a brute.