“Come back?” she exclaimed. “Where are you going?”
“I do not know,” he said. “You must be brave, Helen. I am going away. I have broken with Major Lawrence. I’ll go away somewhere and”——
“That is foolish,” she said. “I was afraid when Major Lawrence came to me that you had quarreled with him. He didn’t seem a bit angry with me. He was very polite.”
“You saw Uncle Jim?” he asked in surprise. “What did he say? What did you tell him?”
“I told him it was all a joke”——
“A joke?” The boy’s face was ghastly from the shock.
“Of course, Larry,” she replied impatiently. “Be sensible. You did not want me to quarrel with him, did you?”
“But it wasn’t necessary to tell him that,” he protested.
“I did it to throw him off his guard,” she said lightly. “Then we could run away and get married. I know he’d forgive us, now that he knows me. He really seemed to like me, and patted me on the arm and said I was a sensible girl.”
“It sounds as if you deceived him,” he answered sulkily. “We cannot treat him that way—deceive him and come to him as beggars, asking him to support us.”