"What ... what do you mean, sir?"
The stern eyes were still boring into his. But now the cadet thought he could detect a trace of secret amusement behind them.
"Why do you torture yourself like this? You know how to find out what it's all about."
There was a sinking feeling in George Hanlon's mind. Did that mean what he was afraid it meant?
He sent out a tentative feeler of thought toward the mind behind that expressionless face. He expected to find it difficult to do, because of long disuse of the faculty. But he was amazed both at the ease with which the technique returned to him, and with the feeling of warm friendliness he found in that mind—almost like a sort of fatherly pride.
He probed a bit deeper, and was aware of assurance that he had done nothing to merit punishment. Indeed, it seemed he could catch exactly the opposite feeling.
He must have shown his relief, for the commandant's stern face relaxed into a broad smile, and he lounged back in his big chair.
"That's better. At ease, and sit down."
Slowly, disbelieving the sudden change, the astonished young cadet gingerly sank onto the front edge of a chair. He had to, his legs were suddenly rubbery.
"I ... I don't understand at all, sir."