“How'd you find out she's going at one o'clock?”
“Why—why, Jane mentioned it,” Mrs. Baxter replied, with obvious timidity. “Jane said—”
She was interrupted by the loud, desperate sound of William's fist smiting his writing-table, so sensitive was his condition. “This is just unbearable!” he cried. “Nobody's business is safe from that child!”
“Why, Willie, I don't see how it matters if—”
He uttered a cry. “No! Nothing matters! Nothing matters at all! Do you s'pose I want that child, with her insults, discussing when Miss Pratt is or is not going away? Don't you know there are SOME things that have no business to be talked about by every Tom, Dick, and Harry?”
“Yes, dear,” she said. “I understand, of course. Jane only told me she met Mr. Parcher on the street, and he mentioned that Miss Pratt was going at one o'clock to-day. That's all I—”
“You say you understand,” he wailed, shaking his head drearily at the closed door, “and yet, even on such a day as this, you keep TALKING! Can't you see sometimes there's times when a person can't stand to—”
“Yes, Willie,” Mrs. Baxter interposed, hurriedly. “Of course! I'm going now. I have to go hunt up those children, anyway. You try to be back for lunch at half past one—and don't worry, dear; you really WILL be all right!”
She departed, a sigh from the abyss following her as she went down the hall. Her comforting words meant nothing pleasant to her son, who felt that her optimism was out of place and tactless. He had no intention to be “all right,” and he desired nobody to interfere with his misery.
He went to his mirror, and, gazing long—long and piercingly—at the William there limned, enacted, almost unconsciously, a little scene of parting. The look of suffering upon the mirrored face slowly altered; in its place came one still sorrowful, but tempered with sweet indulgence. He stretched out his hand, as if he set it upon a head at about the height of his shoulder.