"Please don't."
"When you were a little boy, and you got hurt in any way, you used to run away and hide. Are you—hiding now?"
His eyes grew dark with sudden anger, but he replied with self-control:
"You will have to think what you like about that, Sue. If that is the way the thing looks to you—so be it!"
The sound of the returning car made Mrs. Breckenridge speak hurriedly:
"I didn't mean to be unkind, Don boy. Nobody knows better than I that you are no coward. Only—only—you know an ascetic denies himself things that he needn't. And—you are an ascetic!"
"Can I never convince you of your mistake about that?" he answered; and now his lips smiled again, a little stiffly.
She embraced him once more, stopped to say beseechingly, "You won't keep that baby here, will you, Don?" and, receiving his assurance that he would consult with his neighbours in the morning as to the welfare of the foundling, took her departure.
Left alone Brown went back into the quiet room. The baby was stirring among its wrappings. Bim, who had roused himself to see the visitor off, came and poked his nose into the bundle.
"We never know what's coming, Bim, do we?" asked Brown of his companion. "Sometimes it's what we want, and sometimes not. But—if we are to teach others we must be taught ourselves, Bim. And that's what's happening now."