“Perhaps she’ll not think so much of herself after she’s been round with Sterndale a while,” he muttered; “for just as sure as she lets him hang round her she’ll discover people are talking. Everybody knows Sterndale, and still it’s the strangest thing in the world that almost any girl in the village would be glad to take up with him. He has a way about him that makes them like him, no mater what he does; while something about me makes folks dislike me, no matter what I do. It’s my luck to be just as I am! I can’t help it! It’s no use for me to try!”
His father drove up to the door, having just returned from his afternoon calls; and Don took pains to keep out of sight while Dr. Scott surrendered the horse and carriage to Pat and entered the house, for he was in no mood to meet his father just then.
When he was satisfied that all the boys had passed, he went round to the back of the house and threw himself on the ground beneath the sweet apple-tree, giving himself up entirely to bitter thoughts.
He was mistaken, however, about all the boys having passed, for he had not been reclining beneath the tree two minutes before Leon Bentley appeared, slowly following the others.
At sight of Bentley, Don sprang up, calling sharply:
“Look here, Bent, I want to see you. Come over here, where we can talk.”
Bentley crossed the street and vaulted the fence. The expression on his sallow face was anything but pleasant.
“Yes, and I want to see you, too,” he said, apparently paying no attention to Don’s scowl of anger. “This is our chance to have a little talk where no one will hear us.”
“I want to know one thing,” said Don, “and that is if you meant what you said to me here before we went up to the field to practice.”
“Of course I meant anything I said,” declared Leon, flinging himself in a comfortable position on the ground. “What are you driving at, old man?”