"They've no right to guess!"
"We've no right to set them guessing, John." She saw the truth strike and felt that unlucky impulse of compassion which so often makes a woman's mercy so unmercifully ill-timed. "Oh!" she called as he was leaving.
He came back with a foolish hope in his face. She spoke softly.
"Everybody says there's a new John March. Tell me it's so; won't you?"
"I"—his countenance fell—"I thought there was, but—I—I don't know." He went on his errand. Champion met him and fixed him with a broad grin.
"I know what's the matter with you, March."
"O pooh! you think so, eh? Well, you never made a greater mistake! I'm simply tired. I'm fairly aching with fatigue, and I suppose my face shows it."
"Yes. Well, that's all I meant. Anybody can see by your face you're in a perfect agony of fatigue. You don't conceal it as well as Shotwell does."
"Shotwell!" laughed John. "He's got about as much agony to conceal as a wash-bench with a broken leg. O, I'll conceal mine if anybody'll tell me how."
Champion closed his lips but laughed audibly, in his stomach. "Well, then, get that face off of you. You look like a boy that'd lost all his money at a bogus snake-show."