“Well, his face had lit up, and a very fine face it is; it hadn’t blackened for the fifth of a second; but I had a disappointment in store. ‘I’d tell you his name with all my heart,’ he said, ‘only I don’t really know it myself. He said it was John Green—but his handkerchiefs were marked “A. A. U.”’”
“Tony’s initials!” cried Tony’s father.
“But it never was Tony under a false name,” his sister vowed. “That settles it for me, Mr. Thrush.”
“Not even if he’d got into some scrape or adventure, Miss Upton?”
“He would never give a name that wasn’t his.”
“Suppose he felt he had disgraced his name?”
“My brother Tony wouldn’t do it!”
“He might feel he had?”
“He might,” the father agreed, “even if he’d done no such thing; in fact, he’s just the kind of boy who would take an exaggerated view of some things.” His mind went back to his last talk with Horace on the subject.
“Or he might feel he was about to do something, shall we say, unworthy of you all?” Thrush made the suggestion with much delicacy.