He spoke with some heat—more than he intended, but he was still fresh from that interview. The old man’s grip was still on his arm; those sightless eyes were still straining into his. He still heard the irregular breathing and the panting questions—childish questions, trivial questions made great by the love back of them. And to these he had been forced to give lying answers which would never have been accepted save for this same great love and trust. He needed now to be diverted from the memory of it. He was eager to stir up Aunt Philomela—to turn to the lighter side of it though even the comedy of it was tragical.
“If we’re going to be consistent travelers, Aunt Philomela,” he began, “it will be necessary for me to repeat my story to you.”
“Is travelers the word?” she snapped back.
“The more polite word at any rate,” answered Barnes.
“I believe in calling a spade a spade.”
“But that isn’t any reason for calling everything a spade,” he ventured to suggest. “What I was forced to tell him didn’t have sufficient truth in it to make it a lie. It was pure fiction. I am sorry I didn’t have more time for preparation. My effort was necessarily in the nature of an inspiration. It was crude. It made me sorry that when a boy I neglected physical geography.”
Aunt Philomela groaned.
“I’m sure you did the best you could,” declared Miss Van Patten. “It was a very awkward position for you.”
“It was to say the least humiliating. He asked a great many questions.”
“Poor Daddy.”