“No, thanks. But just wait a minute. Oh, don’t look like that!”
David’s face had taken an expression of the most Stygian gloom.
“Sorry,” he said. “Of course I was an ass to hope it.”
“No, you weren’t,” said Maddox. “But I’ve been bothering about it, and I thought I’d talk to you. It’s like this: you and Ozzy have about equal claim, and, if we weren’t such pals, I think I should toss up which of you I gave colours to. But the house would think I was favouring you if I put you in. There’s another thing, too; it’s Ozzy’s last year, and your first. I don’t know that that matters so much; so, if you find yourself left out, it’ll be because we’re pals. See?”
David moved a step nearer; the woe had gone from his face.
“Gosh, then, leave me out,” he said. “I—I prefer being left out, if that’s it.”
“Yes, rather, and—and thanks ever so much.”
There had been no need for more than these jerked telegraphic sentences, but David went up town, treading on air, with a secret heavenly pride that was certainly among the “rippingest feelings” he had ever had. He congratulated Ozzy with complete sincerity. . . . And here was Frank himself sliding down the crumbling sand-path with towels.
Frank threw a towel at him and knocked off his hat.
“Mother’s lunching out,” he said, “so we can bathe just as long as we please without being late. Oh, and she said to me, ‘need you’—that’s you—‘go away on Saturday?’ I said I’d ask you.”
“No, of course I needn’t,” he said. “At least——”
“At least?” said Frank, emptying the sand out of his shoes.
“I mean, are you sure I’m not being a bore? I should love to stop, of course. But won’t you and your mother get blasted sick of me?”
“Don’t think she will,” said Maddox gravely. “I shall rather, but it doesn’t matter. In fact, I was wondering whether perhaps you’d mind going on Friday instead of Saturday.”
“That’s a poor shot at getting a rise out of me,” he said. “Absolute failure. I shan’t go away on Friday or Saturday.”
Frank just shrugged his shoulders, and stifled a yawn with dreadful versimilitude. David gave him one short, anxious glance.
“And that wasn’t such a poor shot after all,” said Frank. “Just for a second you wondered if I was in earnest.”
David gave it up, and lay back on the sand again, beginning to unbutton.