XV
Wandel, quite undisturbed, joined them.
"You and Dicky," the little man said, "look as if you had come out of a bad wreck. What's up? It's only a game."
"Of course you're right," George answered, "but you have to play some games desperately hard if you want to win."
"Now what are you driving at, great man?" Wandel wanted to know.
"Come on, Spike," Goodhue said, irritably. "You're always looking for double meanings."
George walked on with them, desolately aware of many factors of his life gone awry. The game; Lambert's noticeable mockery, all the more unbearable because of its unaffectedness; Dalrymple's adjacence to Sylvia—these remembrances stung, the last most of all.
"Come on up, you two," Goodhue suggested as they approached the building in which he lived, "I believe Dolly's giving tea to Sylvia Planter and her mother."
George wanted to see if the photograph was still there, but he couldn't risk it. He shook his head.
"Not into the camp of the enemy?" Wandel laughed.