She looked mystified at first, and then astounded.
“How did you get out?”
“How do you suppose?”
“I never heard anything!”
“I took care you shouldn’t.”
And he described the successful adventure with pardonable unction in the end. After that he insisted on saying goodbye. And the young girl stood up to him like a little heroine.
“I’m very sorry, but I can’t let you go, Mr. Upton.”
“Can’t let me?”
“I really am sorry—but you must wait to see my uncle.”
He stood aghast before the determined girl. She was obviously older than himself, yet she was only a slip of a girl, and if he forced his way past—but he was not the fellow to do it—and that maddened him, because he felt she knew it.