“Then I don’t know what I can do,” I said, in unguarded consternation.
“Why,” said Willy, turning round and looking at me with his hands in his pockets, “what’s the hurry?”
“There is no hurry exactly,” I said, feeling very small and cowardly; “but I thought you knew—at least, I think I told you this morning, that Mr. O’Neill said he would come over to-day.”
I wondered if this simple sentence gave any indication of the effort it was to me to say it.
“I can’t say I remember anything about it,” Willy answered, in what I am sure he thought a crushingly chilly voice.
“Oh yes, indeed I did tell you,” I said, getting up and following him to the door; “but you sneezed just as I was saying it, and the voice is not yet created that could be heard through one of your sneezes.”
I knew that he was rather proud than otherwise of his noisy sneezes, and I laughed servilely, and looked up, hoping that he would laugh too. But there was nothing approaching to amusement in his face. It was red and forbidding, as he looked out into the rain that was thrashing down in the dirty yard. He had still a good deal of hay and hayseed about his coat and hat, and altogether I thought it was not one of his most becoming moments.
“I don’t know if you’d like to start in that,” he said; “but if you would, I’m quite ready to go with you.”
If I had been alone, I should probably have faced a wetting in order to get back to the house; but now I was both too proud and too shy to accept Willy’s offer.
“I think I shall wait a little longer,” I said, going back to my chair by the fire.