“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said Alice ... “and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything....”
XXIII
MY LORD AND EKE MY MASTER
BUT Gorgas did not hear from Allen Blynn, nor did he send couriers. For nearly a week he permitted himself to be led about by Diccon in the rôle of a “candidate,” growing each day more rebellious, and finally he had decamped. There was one important luncheon “to meet Professor Allen Blynn” which had to get along without its chief guest. The professor had seized his grip and fled. Rumor had it that he had buried himself in the University library, but Gorgas soon discovered that he had been seen under his own shade trees with his young pupils; and there she found him.
He looked older, she noted as she peered cautiously at him through a hedge. And what was that on the end of his chin which waggled as he talked? Mercy! It was the beginnings of a beard! That tuft was certainly the sign of a man absorbed in his affairs or worried beyond peradventure.
For some time she watched him through the hedge—“Getting used to the chin-thing,” she told him later. Howard Croft, the cripple boy, was reading aloud from a portentous history of philosophy; the two seemed to be stopping at every sentence to talk it out. She had rarely seen Allen Blynn so terribly in earnest.
When she finally stepped through the hedge and came up to the studious pair, Allen gave her a nod, as much as to say, “Sit down and pretend to be busy or you’ll frighten this shy bird off.”
For an hour she sketched beards of all nations, from Belshazzarian curls to the latest French twist, adroitly arranging it so that the boy could not see her.
“You like to make folks suffer, Allen Blynn,” Gorgas scolded gently after the boy had gone. “How do you suppose the Leverings have stood all this waiting for you to come over and tell us the latest? I just couldn’t stand it any longer. If I don’t hear all about Holden and other things I’ll blow up. I’m to take you back with me for dinner. The old crowd—some of them—are to drop in. Oh, the papers have told everything, so you needn’t fear.”
And all the time her mirthful eyes were fastened on his chin.
“I cannot talk about it,” his lips closed firmly. “It makes me ill even to think of it. That’s why I have been working on the youngsters so solidly. It’s the only antidote.”