"Looks like a good cuss," was Boole's whispered confidence. "Kind o' soft—like most o' them swell sports that marries working goyls."
Bob was finding himself less and less at his ease. The boy not only came none of the way to meet him, but seemed to hold him as an enemy. By his silence and by the severity of his regard he conveyed the impression that young Coll, and not himself, had done the wrong.
It was an attitude for which Bob was not prepared. Neither was he prepared for the defacement of all that had been glowing in the lad's countenance. Jennie had warned him against expecting the ruddy bright-eyed Teddy of the bank, but he hadn't looked for this air of youth blasted out of youthfulness. It was still youth, but youth marred, terrified, haunted, with a fear beyond that of gibbering old age.
With his lovingness and quickness of pity, Bob sought for a line by which he could catch on to the lad's interest.
"I asked my father to send you the best counsel in New Jersey, and I believe he's picked out Stenhouse."
Teddy regarded him grimly.
"Yes, he did." It seemed as if he meant to say no more, when, with a sardonic grunt, he went on, "Something like a guy who smashes a machine and then gets the best mechanician in the world to come and patch it up."
"Yes—possibly—it may be. Only, there's this to consider—that no one smashes a machine on purpose."
"No, I don't suppose he does. Only, it's all the same to the machine whether it's been smashed on purpose or by accident—so long as it'll never run again."
Bob considered this.