“What are you staring at?” Ella demanded curiously.
Macheson looked away from the door and smiled quietly.
“I was wondering,” he answered, “what it was like—outside?”
“Would you like to go?” she whispered eagerly in his ear. “I’m ready. The others could come on afterwards.”
“What, without supper?” he exclaimed. “My dear girl, I’m starving. Besides—I didn’t mean that altogether.”
“It’s rather hard to know what you do mean,” she remarked with a sigh. “Say, I don’t understand you a little bit!”
“How should you,” he answered, “when I’m in the same fix myself?”
“I wish you were like other boys,” she remarked. “You’re so difficult!”
He looked at her—without the mask—for a moment, and she drew back, wondering. For his eyes were very weary, and they spoke to her of things which she did not understand.