“I don’t know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything,” Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own.
“Ah,” said Acton, interrogatively, “Eugenia knows everything?”
“She knew it was not father coming in.”
“Then why did you go?”
Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. “Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate.”
“Did she think it was I?” Acton asked.
“She didn’t say so.”
Again Robert Acton reflected. “But you didn’t go,” he presently said; “you came back.”
“I couldn’t get out of the studio,” Clifford rejoined. “The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn’t want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn’t she?” Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort.
“Beautifully!” said Acton. “Especially,” he continued, “when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed.”