“You could well enough if you chose,” said Wyndham, sorely disappointed and aggrieved. “The fact is, I don’t know why, I believe you’ve got a spite against me of late.”
“You know I haven’t, Wyndham,” said Riddell, kindly.
Wyndham did know, and at any other time would have felt reproached by the consciousness of his own injustice. But he was just now so bitterly disappointed that he smothered every other feeling, and answered angrily, “Yes, you have, and I don’t care if you have; I suppose it’s because I’m friends with Silk. I can tell you Silk’s a good deal more brickish to me than you are!”
Poor Riddell! This, then, was the end of his hopes of winning over his old friend’s brother. The words struck him like a knife. He would almost sooner break all the rules in the school, so he felt that moment, than drive this one boy to throw in his lot with fellows like Silk!
“Wyndham!” he said, almost appealingly.
But Wyndham was gone, and the chance was lost.
The rest of that day passed miserably for the captain. An ominous silence and order seemed to hang over morning school. No further applicants molested him. No case of disorder was reported during the morning, and at dinner the boys were so quiet they might have been in church.
Just after morning school, and before dinner, as he crossed the playground, Wyndham passed him, talking and laughing with Silk; and neither of them noticed him.
The captain retired to his study, dejected and miserable, and, as his only comfort, buried himself in his books. For an hour at least before the early call-over he might forget his trouble in hard work.
But before that hour was half-over Riddell closed his book with a start and a sense of something unusual. This unearthly stillness all over the place—he never remembered anything of the sort before. Not a sound rose from the neighbouring studies, and when he looked out the playground was as deserted as if it had been the middle of the summer holidays. What did it all mean?