“Thank you.”
“Oh, I don’t deserve any thanks! I shall take care to avoid your brother, as the easiest way to keep from breaking my promise to you. I—I’m sorry anything happened—for your sake.”
His voice that had been harsh seemed to soften with the final words, but he gave his head a toss as he turned away; and then, without stopping or heeding anybody, he hurried from the field.
“I suppose they’ll all say I’m to blame,” he muttered to himself, as he walked swiftly past the academy and hastened down the hill. “I don’t care if they do! I couldn’t stand it from that fellow, and that’s all there is to it.”
He had gone some distance before he noticed that he was wearing the football suit and had left his own clothes in the dressing-room beneath the grand-stand. When he made this discovery, he paused a moment, tempted to go back at once.
“No,” he finally said, shaking his head; “they’d be there, and some of them would be changing their clothes. I don’t want to see any of the fellows now—I don’t want to talk it over.”
So he went on.
Had he returned, he might have arrived at the gate in time to hear an interesting bit of conversation between three girls. Zadia Renwood was talking with the two companions who had accompanied her to the field, Dora Deland and Agnes Mayfair.
“I’m sorry,” said Agnes, with genuine sympathy expressed on her sweet face and in her dark eyes. “I’m sorry your brother should have trouble with any of the boys, Zadia, and I’m sure Don Scott will be sorry when he gets over being angry.”
“I’m not very sure about that, myself,” Dora laughed, with curling lips. “He has a frightful temper, which he never tries to restrain, and I think he’s just perfectly horrid. I can’t bear him. Of course he was entirely to blame, and I think——”