"No, I thank you, Sir!" he protested. "I simply couldn't sit down!" Restively he crossed to the bookcase and swung around with a jerk to rake his impatient eyes across the girl's lingering presence. "Maybe I'll never sit down again!" he said.
"Nor eat?" drawled the older man. "Nor—sleep?"
"Nor eat, nor sleep!" said the boy.
"Yes, that's just it," whispered the girl. "That's just the way he was on the train—miles and miles it must have been—from the engine to the last car—all the time I mean—night and day— stalking up and down—up and down!"
"Little Stupid!" said her father.
"Who?—I?" gasped the girl. For a second bewilderment she stared 10 from the man's face to the boy's. "O—h!" she cried out in sudden enlightenment. "You asked him to sit down, didn't you?" And fled from the room.
With a shiver of relief the boy turned squarely then to meet the man. The quizzically furrowed lines around the man's mouth still held their faint ironic humor but the boy's face in the full light showed strangely stark.
"Well—Lad," said the man very softly. "What have you got to tell me about it?"
"Why that's just it!" cried the boy. "What is there to tell except that I've been a thoughtless cad,—a——"
"How—thoughtless?" said the man.