“Where could he get anything to drink up here?” asked Norman, a little nervously.
“Tell me!” responded Colonel Howell. “That’s what we all want to know. Anyway,” he went on, “we’ve done our part towards cutting it out. There isn’t a drop of it in this outfit.”
When he could do so without attracting attention, Norman glanced at Paul. The latter as quickly averted his eyes and plunged with greater energy into his share of the work.
These events had taken place just before the “cabin passengers” had been called to supper. Efforts were being made to forget the Chandler episode and Colonel Howell especially was talkative and jolly. Paul was just the opposite. At last, when the cook had left them with their tea, the young Austrian seemed to become desperate. Norman and Roy were just about to leave the cabin when Paul stopped them, more and more embarrassed.
“I want to say something, boys,” he began. Then he turned to his host and, the perspiration thick on his face, added suddenly: “Colonel Howell, I don’t know how to say it, but I’ve got to tell you. I lied to you the other night in the hotel at Edmonton. You didn’t ask me to stop drinking, but you talked to me pretty straight, and that’s what I meant to do. Well I didn’t stop—I just put it off, a little. I didn’t do the right thing back at the Landing. I knew it then, but I knew I was going to stop when I came up here and I just put it off a little longer.”
The colonel made a half deprecating motion, as if it embarrassed him to listen to the young man’s confession.
“I thought it was all right,” he said, as if to somewhat relieve Paul’s embarrassment, “and I knew you meant to stop. Of course we knew what you were doing, but you’re pretty young,” concluded the colonel with a laugh.
Norman and Roy each gave signs of an inclination to relieve Paul’s embarrassment and Norman especially showed concern. But he and his friend remained silent.
“We’ll let that all be bygones,” suggested Colonel Howell, “and here’s to the future—we’ll drink to what is to come in Canada’s national beverage—black tea reeking with the smoke of the camp fire.”
A laugh of relief started round, as Paul’s three companions hit the table with their heavy tin cups, but in this the young Count did not join.