"Sit down," said Madam Van Ruypen, pointing to the ottoman, and again Joel sat down with a decided conviction that he didn't like afternoon calls; and he gazed anxiously at the door to see if by any chance Aunty Whitney would appear.
"You see, Joel, I depend on you," Madam Van Ruypen was saying.
Joel, all his thoughts on the little room off from the hall, and the desire which now possessed him to get back the key into the butler's hands before he could go with his story to Mother Fisher, sat and swung his feet in dismal silence, every word of the old lady's falling on heedless ears.
At last she stopped short and surveyed him with smart displeasure.
"You haven't heard a word I've said," she declared sharply.
"No'm," said Joel, promptly; and, coming to himself with an awful consciousness that here was something dreadful to add to the matter of the key that now began to quite weigh him down, he stopped swinging his feet and sat stiffly on the chair.
"Well, do you come straight here," she demanded; and somehow Joel found himself off from his chair, and over by the old lady's side.
"No, not there; I want you in front where I can look at you," and she summarily arranged him to her liking. "There you are! Now, Joel,"—she surveyed him as long as it suited her, Joel not taking his black eyes from her face,—"do you know what I want this talk with you for?"
"No'm," said Joel.
"Well, I'll tell you; listen, now."