“Then you just couldn't get home sooner, could you? Something you couldn't help kept you away, didn't it?”
Bill shook his head slowly. “No,” he answered easily. “I could have come home much sooner.”
“Billy, dear, what DID happen?” She was beginning to feel panicky; he was courting distress.
“Nothing, mother. I just felt like staying in the reading-room and reading—”
“Oh, you HAD to do some lessons, didn't you! Miss Roberts should have known better—”
“I didn't have to stay in—I wanted to.”
Martin still kept silent, his eyes looking over the newspaper wide open, staring, the muscles of his jaw relaxed. The boy was quick to sense that he was winning—the simple, non-resistance of the lamb was confounding his father.
“I wanted to stay. I read a book, and then I took a walk, and then I dropped in at the restaurant for a bite, and then I walked around some more, and then I went to a movie.”
“Billy, what are you saying?”
Martin, slowly putting down his paper, remarked without stressing a syllable: