“Blessed man!” said Betty, who was standing in the far distance. “He might be a dook himself for all his airs. It was lovely the way he clothed his thoughts that time. What they be themselves I don’t know, but his language was most enthralling. John, get out of my way. What are you standing behind me like that for? Get along and weed the garden—do.”
“You’ll give me a cup of tea, and tell me more about that dream of yours,” was John’s answer.
Whereupon Betty took John by the hand, whisked into her kitchen, slammed the door after her, and planted him down on a wooden seat, and then proceeded to make tea.
But while John and Betty were happily engaged in pleasant converse with each other, Mr. Dale’s condition was by no means so favorable. At first when he entered his study he saw nothing unusual. His mind was far too loftily poised to notice such sublunary matters as white curtains and druggets not in tatters; but when he seated himself at his desk, and stretched out his hand mechanically to find his battered old edition of Plato, it was not in its accustomed place. He looked around him, raised his eyes, put his hand to his forehead, and, still mechanically, but with a dawning of fright on his face, glanced round the room. What did he see? He started, stumbled to his feet, turned deathly white, and rushed to the opposite bookcase. There was his Plato—his idol—actually placed in the bookshelf upside-down. It was a monstrous crime—a crime that he felt he could never forgive—that no one could expect him to forgive. He walked across to the fireplace and rang the bell.
“You must go, Miss Patty,” said nurse. “I was willing to do it, but I can’t face him. You must go; you really must.”
“Well, I’m not frightened,” said Patty. “Come on, Briar.”
The two little girls walked down the passage. Mr. Dale’s bell was heard to ring again.
“Aren’t you the least bit frightened, Patty?” asked Briar.
“No,” answered Patty, with a sigh. “If only I could get the real heaviness off my mind, nothing else would matter. Oh, Briar, Briar!”
“Don’t talk of it now,” said Briar. “To-night when we are alone, when we are by ourselves in our own room, but not now. Come, let us answer father’s bell.”