"He shouldn't have spoken to me as he did, when I was his guest at his own table," young Harding continued. "But after all, he is an old man, I ought to have remembered that. Well, it's too late; it's all over now!"
"But is it too late? Can't anything be done?"
He almost smiled at the feminine failure to realise that the night's work was more than a tiff which might be made up and forgotten.
"Kiss and make friends—eh?" he said. "Will you run and fetch your uncle?"
The leaden little jest was uttered so miserably that Barbara only sighed in answer.
"No," said the young man, "it's all over. Even if I could apologise—and I can't—I couldn't sit at his table again. It wouldn't be possible. No, I must go!"
"And you are sorry you ever came!"
"Don't remind me of that! I'm just as sorry I came here as that I ever came into the world at all."
The old clock in the dusky hall below struck ten slow strokes.