He didn't answer; he just stood there flattening himself against the rock, his face deadly white, his eyes almost closed, and his lips set tight together.
I got so angry! I despise a coward! Had Jack done that, I thought to myself, I'd have been tempted to thrash him to put some spirit and pluck into him; and here was this great big overgrown boy—! "Why don't you run away to the house?" I broke out sharply. "I can take care of myself; I'm not afraid of a little thunder."
He put up his hand in a deprecating way, as if asking me to hush. Then, as a nearer peal reverberated among the rocks, and another flash lighted up the now leaden-coloured sky, he sprang forward and caught hold of my arm, with a sharp cry of "Come! come!" Wheeling me round suddenly, he ran toward the house, carrying me along with him with such force and swiftness—though I resisted—that in a few minutes we were on the piazza, and then in the hall, with the heavy outer door swung shut. We were barely under cover when the rain pelted down, and the thunder and lightning grew more loud and vivid.
Hilliard leaned breathlessly against the hat-rack table,—I could see that he was trembling. I stood and looked at him,—I suppose it was rude, but I couldn't help it; you see I had never met such a kind of boy before.
Mrs. Erveng had spent part of the day on the beach, and had come to the house about an hour before to take her afternoon nap. Now we heard her voice from the floor above us. "Hilliard! Hilliard, my son!" she called; there was something in her voice—a sort of tenderness—that I had never noticed before. "Come here to me; come!"
And he went, without a glance at me, lifting his feet heavily from step to step, with drooping head and a shamed, miserable expression on his pale face.
In about an hour's time the storm was all over, and that afternoon we had a gorgeous sunset; but Mr. Erveng and I were the only ones who sat on the piazza to enjoy it. Neither Mrs. Erveng nor Hilliard appeared again that day. Mr. Erveng took me for a walk along the beach, and did his best to entertain me: but I had a feeling that I was in the way—that he would rather have been upstairs with his wife and son, or that perhaps if I had not been there they would have come down.
I thought of them all at home,—Phil and Fee with their fun and merry speeches, and Jack, and the little ones, and Nora; there is always something or other going on, and I would have given almost anything to be back once more among them. I was so unhappy this afternoon that I actually deliberated whether I had the courage to do something desperate,—make faces at Mr. Erveng, or race upstairs and interview Mrs. Erveng, or call Hilliard names out loud,—anything, so that they would send me home.
But after a while I concluded I wouldn't try any of these desperate remedies; not that I minded what they'd say at home (teasing, I mean), but papa would want to know the whole affair,—he has got to think a good deal of Mr. Erveng,—and besides, somehow, though she's so gentle and refined, Mrs. Erveng isn't at all the sort of person that one could do those things to. So I said nothing, though I thought a great deal; and I went to bed before nine o'clock thoroughly disgusted with the Ervengs.
Hilliard was at breakfast the next morning, just as stiff and prim and proper as ever,—it almost seemed as if what had happened in the storm must be a dream. But later on, when we were on the piazza, he spoke of it to me.