Then the man looked up sharply from the birch log to the boy's 18 quivering face.
"Well—was the roast chicken good?" he asked.
"S—ir?" stammered the boy.
"And so——?" prompted the man.
From the boy's lips a long shuddering sigh escaped. "And so," said the boy, "I have ruined your daughter's life."
"And what do you propose to do about it?" asked the man.
With a quick squaring of his shoulders the boy drew his fine young body to its full height.
"I propose to do whatever you want me to do," he said.
"Such as what?" asked the man.
"Such as anything!" said the boy. Almost imperceptibly his breath quickened. "Why, when I came here just now," he cried, "I came, of course, expecting to be stormed at, to be cursed, to be insulted, to be told I was a liar, to have everything I said or did rammed down my throat again! But you?——All you've done is just to listen to me! And believe me! And laugh! It's as though I'd hurt you so much you were sorriest of all for me—and were 19 trying every darned way you knew to keep me from going mad! It's as though——" From the sudden slight sag of his shoulders he rallied again with a gesture of folded arms and finality. "I tell you I want to do whatever you want me to do," he repeated quite simply.