“He used to write us, you see,” went on Mrs. Archer, smiling, “that he liked you, but that you had other friends and did not care for him. I knew it would be different when you got to know each other.”
“Was the carriage ordered, mother?” broke in Sam, most abruptly.
“Yes, for two o’clock,” Mrs. Archer rejoined, and turned again to her guest. “I was disappointed when Sam proposed to bring down Mulcahy, whom I did not know at all, and not you whom I had met and wanted to see more of. Is Mulcahy one of your friends, too?”
“Not a very intimate one,” replied Duncan.
“He must be a very remarkable young man.” She addressed herself again to the uneasy Sam. “But you haven’t said much about him lately, Sam. What has become of him?”
“Oh, he’s around,” answered the son of the house, unpleasantly reminded of the superlatives which he had used in his early letters in describing Mulcahy. “Didn’t you say you were going to hand over some of that cake to take back with us, mother?”
“Katy’s doing it up now. Shall I tell her to put in some strawberry jam?”
Mrs. Archer rustled out on her errand, leaving the boys alone. Sam picked up a magazine which lay on the table, and turned the pages of advertisements.
“I did treat you pretty rocky that fall term,” remarked Duncan, as if their differences during Sam’s first months in school had been the topic of conversation. “I acted like a mick.”
“Don’t think of it,” returned Sam, without looking up. “I was a fool.”