Mark shook his head and tightened his lips, compressing them into a long line across the bottom of his face, the curve disappearing and a couple of dot-like dimples forming at either end.
“What do you mean by that, sir?” cried Sir James. “Tell me what you mean?”
The boy shook his head once more, and then the line disappeared, the curves came back, and he silently shaped the words as before.
“Do you want to aggravate me, sir? Such foolery! Speak out, sir, at once.”
Mark drew back, walked sharply across the room and half opened the door, before turning to face his father again, the others gazing at him in wonder.
“What’s come to him, doctor?” cried Sir James. “Here, Mark, I command you, sir: speak out!”
“If you don’t come with us, father,” said the boy, slowly and deliberately—“oh, Dean, I am sorry for you—there will be no expedition, for I won’t go.”
There was a moment or two’s silence, and then Sir James raged out, “Well, of all the daring—here, doctor, is this the result of your moral teaching of my boys? Now, sir, frankly, what am I to do in a case like this?”
The doctor was silent for a moment or two. Then after drawing a deep breath he turned to Sir James.
“You want my advice, sir, as frankly as I can give it, between man and man?”