Even when the school closed for the day, it depended entirely on Keith if they were to have company home. Murray never waited. If Keith was not in sight when he reached the street, he went right on. Several times Keith had to run several blocks to overtake his friend.
"Why couldn't you wait a minute for me," he asked when he had recovered his breath after one of those pursuits.
"Oh, that's so silly," was Murray's only reply, and a repetition of the question on two or three subsequent occasions brought no more satisfactory response. Keith did not press the matter beyond that point and uttered no protest at Murray's real or assumed indifference.
Until then Keith had always taken East Long Street on his way to school in the morning. Now he turned invariably down the lane to the Quay. On reaching the corner, he took a long look at the corner house where Murray lived. Two mornings he saw no one and walked on. The third morning Murray happened to appear just as Keith reached the corner. After that Keith waited for his friend, and they walked together to as well as from school. Having waited very long one morning and fearing that his friend had passed already, Keith ventured into the house, when he caught sight of Murray coming out of a door reached by a little spur of the main stairway.
"Is that where you live," asked Keith.
"That's the kitchen door," said Murray. "Our main entrance is in front on the landing above. It's quicker for me to get out this way in the morning, and I don't have to disturb anybody."
A few mornings later, Murray was late again, and Keith after long hesitation walked up to the kitchen door and knocked. A pleasant-faced serving girl opened.
"Oh, you are the little fellow who waits for George every morning," she said with a smile. "Come in and wait here. He'll be ready in a moment."
After that Keith went straight up to the kitchen every morning. It was a room as large as a hall, shiningly clean, and well furnished as a dining and living-room for the three women serving there. Keith became quite familiar with it, but he always remained by the door, and he always felt that he ought not to be there. Yet he could no more resist going there than he could stop breathing, it seemed.
That kitchen was the only part of Murray's home he ever saw. He never caught a glimpse even of his friend's mother, who evidently was a very exclusive lady. Two or three times he saw Murray on the street after school hours in company with a tall, portly and handsome gentleman, whom he took to be the father. Later his guess was confirmed, but Murray never showed any inclination to let his parents become aware of Keith's existence.