“That’s right, my lad,” said the governor. “Now then we will leave you, and you may dress and join us in the next room, where Donna Maude is, like me, very anxious to learn all about the Doctor’s adventures and your own. You can tell us and rest as well.”
Bart was not long in dressing, and as he did so, he began to realise how terribly worn and travel-stained his rough hunting costume had become. It was a subject that he had never thought of out in the plains, for what did dress matter so long as it was a stout covering that would protect his body from the thorns? But now that he was to appear before the governor’s lady and Maude, he felt a curious kind of shame that made him at last sit down in a chair, asking himself whether he had not better go off and hide somewhere—anywhere, so as to be out of his present quandary.
Sitting down in a chair too! How strange it seemed! He had not seated himself in a chair now for a very, very long time, and it seemed almost tiresome and awkward; but all the same it did nothing to help him out of his dilemma.
“Whatever shall I do?” thought Bart. “And how wretched it is for me to be waiting here when the Doctor is perhaps in a terrible state, expecting help!”
“He is in safety, though,” he mused the next minute, “for nothing but neglect would make the place unsafe. How glad I am that I ran that risk, and went all round to make sure that there was no other way up to the mountain-top!”
Just then there was a soft tapping at the door, and a voice said—
“Are you ready to come, Bart? The governor is waiting.”
“Yes—no, yes—no,” cried Bart, in confusion, as he ran and opened the door. “I cannot come, Maude. Tell them I cannot come.”
“You cannot come!” she cried, wonderingly. “And why not, pray?”
“Why not! Just look at my miserable clothes. I’m only fit to go and have dinner with the greasers.”