"Why, come in!" he ordered.
Without further parleying the two young people appeared before him.
In the five minutes of her absence the young girl seemed to have grown younger, smaller, infinitely more broken even than her father had remembered her. But almost any girl would have looked unduly frail perhaps before the superbly handsome and altogether stalwart young athlete who loomed up so definitely beside her.
As though his daughter suddenly had ceased to exist the father's glance narrowed sharply towards the boy's clean young figure— the eager, worried eyes—the sensitive nostril—the grimly resolute young mouth, and in that glance a gasp that might have meant anything slipped through his own lips.
"You're—you're a keen looking lad!" he said. "But I think I could lick you at tennis!"
"Sir?" faltered the boy.
Quizzically but not unkindly the man resumed his stare. "I don't 9 think I happen to have heard your name," he affirmed with some abruptness.
"Wiltoner," said the boy. "Richard Wiltoner."
"Sit down, Richard," said the man.
Like some tortured creature at bay the boy turned sharply to the window and back towards the door again.