By that time he had grown too proud to ask for an explanation.

The two chums spent less time together as a result, Steve becoming more dependent on Roy for companionship and Tom on Harry.
When they were all four together, which was very frequently, it was not so bad, but when Steve and Tom were alone conversation was apt to languish.
Tom at first was inclined to blame Steve's "Daley Schedule" for the change, for that schedule had quite altered Steve's existence.

He lived by a strict routine which he followed with a dogged determination quite foreign to his ways as Tom knew them.

He got up on time in the morning, reached the dining-hall almost as soon as the doors were opened, spent a scant twenty minutes there and then went directly back to his room to browse over his recitations for the day.

Once Tom found him there hunched up in a corner of the window-seat while the chambermaid, viewing his presence distastefully, draped the furniture with bedding and did her best with broom and duster to discourage him from a repetition of the outrage.