"No, father," Edgar promptly replied, secretly very alarmed, though he met his father's gaze with an immovable face.
"But you and your cousin were there during the evening—I have ascertained that from the servants. Come, speak the truth. Were you smoking?"
"No, father." The response was not quite so unfaltering this time.
"Then how comes it several cigarettes are gone from here?" Mr. Marsh inquired, producing the case from which Edgar had helped himself on the preceding evening.
"I—I only smoked one," Edgar confessed. After Roger had left he had returned to the study and taken several more cigarettes—under the deluded idea that his father would not miss them—which he had subsequently hidden in his own room. "Oh, father, please don't look so angry! It really and truly was only one!"
"Then who smoked the others? Your cousin, I suppose. Why did you not speak the truth and own what you two had been doing instead of uttering such a daring falsehood? How often have I told you of my great abhorrence of small boys smoking?"
"I am very sorry," faltered Edgar, alarmed at the severity of Mr. Marsh's tone.
"Oh, John, you must overlook his naughtiness this time, and forgive him!" broke in Mrs. Marsh eagerly; "he won't smoke again, will you, Edgar, darling?"
"No, mother," the boy responded, watching his father anxiously, "I won't."
"There, John, you hear that!" she exclaimed.