"Like an idiot."
"Has he been doing anything new?"
My object being to get a second version of the story Hugh had told me, I succeeded. Mrs. Rossiter's facts were practically the same as her brother's, only viewed from a different angle. As she presented the case Hugh had been merely preposterous, dashing his head against a stone wall, with nothing he could gain by the exercise.
"The idea of his saying he'll not go to the Goldboroughs for the twelfth! Of course he'll go. Since father means him to do it, he will."
I was addressing an envelope, and went on with my task. "But I thought you said he'd left home?"
"Oh, well, he'll come back."
"But suppose he doesn't? Suppose he goes to work?"
"Pff! The idea! He won't keep that up long."
I was glad to be sitting with my back to her. To disguise the quaver in my voice I licked the flap of the envelope as I said:
"But he'll have to if he means to support a wife."