"Do you know," said Martin, arranging himself in a more comfortable attitude, "that it's over two months since I spoke to any one of about my own age?"
Joan settled herself to listen. With the uncanny intuition that makes women so disconcerting, she realized that she had missed her chance and must let the boy have his head.
Not until he had unburdened his soul would she be able, she knew, to focus his complete attention upon herself.
"Tell me about it," she said.
He gave her a grateful look. "You know the house with the kennels over there—the hounds don't let you miss it. I've been wandering about the place without seeing anybody since Father died."
"Oh, then, you're Martin Gray!"
"Yes."
"I was awfully sorry about your father."
"Thanks." The boy's mouth trembled a little, and he worked his thumb into the soft earth. "He was one of the very best, and it was not right. He was too young and too much missed. I don't understand it. He had twenty-five years to his credit, and I wanted to show him what I was going to do. It's all a puzzle to me. There's something frightfully wrong about it all, and it's been worrying me awfully."
Joan couldn't find anything to say. Years before, when she was four years old, Death had come to her house and taken her own father away, and she had a dim remembrance of dark rooms and of her mother crying as though she had been very badly hurt. It was a vague figure now, and the boy's queer way of talking about it so personally made the conventional expressions that she had heard seem out of place. It was the little shake in his voice that touched her.