“How did you come in?” asked Freda in a husky whisper.
“By a way you don’t know of,” answered the young fellow, looking at his riding-whip.
“You came in to see me?” asked Freda in a softer tone.
“Yes,” said Dick, suddenly standing erect, speaking in a full, firm voice, and looking straight up at the dusty ceiling with flashing blue eyes, “I came to see you, to speak to you about what that rascal Bob said. He told you something about me, didn’t he? He made up some ridiculous nonsense that I’d said about you?”
Freda, with her little head bending lower and lower, nodded an affirmative very slowly.
“Well, there wasn’t a word of truth in it. I never said anything of the sort. He only said it to serve his own interests. I was obliged to come and tell you the moment he confessed to me what he’d done. I didn’t wish you to think me a fool or a knave.”
Freda did not answer. When at last, after a long pause, Dick glanced at her, he perceived that she was quietly crying. Dick looked closer, in surprise and consternation.
“You’re not crying, are you?” asked he uneasily.
Freda shook her head. Rising from her chair, she picked up an armful of the books that were scattered about the floor, and carrying them back to the shelves, began to replace them very deliberately. Dick, putting down his whip, followed with another load, which she took from him so hastily and awkwardly that they all dropped on the floor.
“I hope it’s not anything in what I said, or the way I said it, that made you cry?”