"Certainly not. Only I do not want to feel I drive him away or deprive you of his companionship. Ever since I told the joke about that bottle of perfumery he seems to avoid me."
"Father hasn't a sense of humour," Sandy ventured, striving to keep the bitterness of resentment from his voice.
"The devil!" ejaculated Lans. "That log spits like a hag. A spark fell straight on my ankle."
"Excuse it," Sandy murmured, smiling as Lans nursed his silk-enclosed ankle.
"Hang it all, Sand! I've got to get back to civilization!"
Sandy bent over the fire to conceal his feelings. "Not to-night, surely," he said.
"No, but in a day or so. Morley, I—I want to tell you something. Tell you why I cut and came up here right in the middle of things at home."
The storm outside pounded on the windows; the fire flared and chuckled crisply. Sandy thought about Cynthia, wondered where she was, and then he became conscious of something Treadwell was saying.
"There was a time, Sand, when I couldn't have come to you with this. I thought you were such an infernal puritan—but Aunt Olive has told me of that—that little affair of yours which ended so—well so happily tragical, and it has made you seem more human. Of course there could have been no better way out for you and—her, and Uncle Levi was a brick to overlook it. I've liked him better for it, but my affair is another matter."
Sandy gazed dumbly at Treadwell and could not frame words to call the other to a halt. Not comprehending what Lans knew or misunderstood, having no intention of explaining—he simply stared and then turned to mend the fire.