“Did all your company come?”
Harry winced, for there was something in his father's manner, more than his words, expressive of strong disapproval. He answered:
“No; I was unwell. The water and the exposure disagreed with me, and I was allowed to come on in advance.”
Mr. Glen, the elder, carefully folded the paper he was reading and laid it on the stand, as if its presence would embarrass him in what he was about to say. He took off his eye-glasses, wiped them deliberately, closed them up and hesitated for a moment, holding them between the thumb and fore finger of one hand, before placing them in their case, which he had taken from his pocket with the other.
These were all gestures with which experience had made Harry painfully familiar. He used to describe them to his boy intimates as “the Governor clearing for action.” There was something very disagreeable coming, and he awaited it apprehensively.
“Were you”—the father's cold, searching eyes rested for an instant on the glasses in his hand, and then were fixed on his son's face—“were you too ill the day of the fight to accompany your command?”
Harry's glance quailed under the penetrating scrutiny, as was his custom when his father subjected him to a relentless catechism; then he summoned assurance and assumed anger.
“Father,” he said, “I certainly did not expect that you would join these mean-spirited curs in their abuse of me, but now I see that—-”
“Henry, you evade the question.” The calm eyes took on a steely hardness. “You certainly know by this time that I always require direct answers to my questions. Now the point is this: You entered this company to be its leader, and to share all its duties with it. It went into a fight while you remained back in camp. Why was this so? Were you too sick to accompany it?”
“I certainly was not feeling well.”