He knew that Charley did not yet earn his own living at home; he knew, also, that Charley was not learning to play on the violin; hence his curiosity.
Charles was not prepared for such a question. He wanted, actually, craved for, a glass of lemonade and one of his mother’s pumpkin pies; but this seemed so flimsy an excuse that he hesitated to say so. He stammered; his cheeks flushed; and at last he said, desperately, “Well, boys, I should like to see how these cuts look in the mirror!”
Will, who shrewdly suspected what Charles was thinking of, said softly, in French—which he understood better now than he did six years before—with a faint attempt at a smile, “And in the eyes of that dear little girl.”
“This is a great change in our plans,” Henry observed. “We intended to stay three weeks; and now, at the end of three days, we are disgusted and homesick.”
It was evident that Steve had something on his mind, and he now asked, inquisitively: “Should you like to go home, Henry?”
“Stephen, I am going home immediately—even if Will and I have to go alone.”
Stephen was about to make a sententious observation; but he checked himself abruptly, and his voice died away in one long, guttural, and untranslatable interjection.
The day before, Stephen had come upon Henry alone in the depths of the forest, leaning against a tree, and whistling as though his heart would break—whistling passionately, yet tenderly—whistling as only a lover can whistle a love-song. Yet it was not a love-song that Henry was whistling, but a piece of instrumental music,—“La Fille de Madame Angot,” by Charles Godfrey,—the first piece that, some three or four years before, he had ever heard his blue-eyed sweetheart play; and the last piece that, in memory of those old days, she had played for him before he set out to go hunting.
Steve had stolen softly away, feeling that the person who could whistle that waltz as Henry whistled it, did not wish to be disturbed. He now refrained from making his observation, and said to himself: “Well, now, I feel just about as happy as if I had said what I wanted to say! Only, it was so good!”