No one seemed to notice him. Leslie knelt and struck a match.
"Well?" said Vivian.
"Well what?" he demanded without looking up.
His sister took a moment for thought. "Is Hetty coming to stay with us in July?"
He stood erect, first rubbing his knee to dislodge the dust,—then his palms.
"No, she isn't coming," he said. He drew a very long breath—the first in several hours—and then expelled it vocally. "She has refused to marry me."
Mr. Wrandall turned a leaf in his book; it sounded like the crack of doom, so still had the room become.
Vivian had the forethought to push a chair toward her mother. It was a most timely act on her part, for Mrs. Wrandall sat down very abruptly and very limply.
"She—WHAT?" gasped Leslie's mother.
"Turned me down—cold," said Leslie briefly.