"I'm growing up rapidly these days. Seems like I'd lived a year since our walk last night."
She colored a little. "Forget that and I'll forgive you."
"I can't forget that."
"Have you any idea what the tests are to be?" she asked, in an effort to change the subject.
"No, I'm outside of it all. I hope they won't scare my poor little mother out of her senses. Ought I to step in and stop it?"
"No, not unless The Voices say so. They welcome investigation—so they've always said. What I should insist on, if I were you, is plenty of time and a series of sittings."
She was speaking now in gracious mood, and he, eager to win from her a fuller expression of forgiveness, spoke again, bravely. "I hope you are not going to be angry with me?"
"Not at all," she replied, with disheartening, impersonal cordiality. "I was partly to blame. I forgot you were a hot-headed boy."
"Don't take that tone with me—I won't stand it!"
"How can you help it?" she answered, with a smile, and moved toward the end of the table where Bartol and Stinchfield still sat smoking and leisurely sipping their coffee.