"How shall I learn?"
"Practice!"
Kenny wheeled. Adam's careless dart had struck deep and sharp and it rankled.
"Very well, Adam," he said, "I'll practice on you."
Truth! Truth! he reflected passionately at the window. Was the world mad about it? And what was the matter with himself? Why did the romantic freaks of his fancy always fill him now with vague worry?
"What," gasped Adam, staring, "did you say?"
"I said," flung out Kenny, "that I'd practice telling the truth and I'd practice on you. And by Heaven I will!"
He wiped his forehead with a shaky hand. The room was warm, the lamp flickering hotly in the summer breeze. He thought of Joan and the ferry. Did she scull the old, flat-bottomed punt back and forth, back and forth, when the winter wind was howling up the river? What did she wear when winter settled, sharp and bleak, upon the ridge? Kenny shivered. He pictured her vividly in furs, warm and rosy, and hated the lynx-like eyes of the miser in the wheel-chair who doled out grudging pennies for nothing but his brandy. There was much that he could say if he told the truth; much the old man must be told if later Joan with her secret tears was to be saved the brunt of his hellish torment. He would force Adam Craig to stop the ferry. He would force him to buy furs. He would force him to endorse Mr. Abbott and his kindness, force him to grant Joan her books and the right to study, if she chose. Why in Heaven's name should she creep through rain and snow and shadows to the refuge in the pines?
He was dangerously excited with the fever of the old crusader in his veins. And then he thought of the trust in Joan's eyes when his tongue rambled, and went cold with shame. He must learn to tell the truth. He would practice for his own sake—and for the sake of Joan.
With a sense of shock he realized that he had been very far away. Adam was choking and wheezing and gasping himself into weakness.