“What makes you think anything’s wrong? I’m all right, I tell you,” said Gilks, half angrily.
Wibberly was half inclined to say that he would not have thought it if he had not been told so, but judging from his companion’s looks that this little pleasantry would not be appreciated, he forbore and walked on in silence.
It was a relief when Wibberly at length discovered that it was time for him to be going back. Gilks wanted nobody’s company, and was glad to be left alone.
And yet he would gladly have escaped even from his own company, which to judge by his miserable looks as he walked on alone was less pleasant than any.
He was sorry now he had not gone to watch the juniors, where at least he would have heard something less hateful than his own thoughts, and seen something less hateful than the dreary creations of his own troubled imagination.
“What’s the use of keeping it up?” said he, bitterly, to himself. “I don’t care! Things can’t be worse than they are. Down in the mouth! He’d be down in the mouth if he were!—the fool! I’ve a good mind to— And yet I daren’t face it. What’s the use of trusting to a fellow like Silk! Bah! how I hate him. He’ll betray me as soon as ever it suits him, and—and—oh, I don’t care. Let him!”
Gilks had reached this dismal climax in his reflections, when he suddenly became aware that the object of his meditations was approaching him.
Silk had his own reasons for not joining the throng that was looking on at the juniors’ match. It may have been mere lack of interest, or it may have been a special desire to take this walk. Whichever it was, his presence now was about as unwelcome an apparition as Gilks could have encountered, and the smile on the intruder’s face showed pretty clearly that he was aware of the fact.
“What are you prowling about here for?” said he as he came up, with all the insolence of a warder addressing a convict.
“I’ve a right to walk here if I choose,” replied Gilks, sulkily; “what are you here for?”