“I guess we’ll excuse your attendance at the public table of the jail this evening,” said the sergeant cheerfully. “Walk right along this way to your cell, sir.”
Eugene followed him down the hall to a little bedroom at the back of the house. It was furnished in pale colors, and a pretty white bed stood in the middle of it. The window was open, and a big bowl of flowers was placed on a small table beside the bed.
“You’re to have solitary imprisonment till to-morrow morning,” said the sergeant trying to speak sternly. “Your jailer will bring you some supper presently. She’s a woman, so you will treat her harmoniously.”
Eugene, still holding his cap in his hand, went and stood by one of the open windows. He was not grateful to the sergeant for introducing him to so charming a prison. He was filled with a blind, wild anger at the fate, as he called it, that had laid him under an obligation to these strangers whom he regarded as below himself in the social scale; and he was all the more angry because, child though he was, he had the acuteness to reflect that in the natural course of things his dissatisfaction would pass away. The more he thought about it the more angry he became; and yet so great control was he able to exert over his feelings when he was disposed to do so, that hardly a trace of his inward disquiet and rebellion appeared on his impassive face.
“Good-night, prisoner,” said the sergeant abruptly. “I’m going now. Pleasant dreams to you.”
“Good-night, jailer,” said Eugene in a repressed voice; “some day I will thank you, but not yet.”
The sergeant shrugged his broad shoulders and walked out to the dining-room.
“Bess,” he said, laughing softly to himself, as he watched his wife flying around the room a pink spot on each cheek, “I’ve trapped your fine foreign bird for you. Tame him now if you can.”
“I’ll tame him,” said Mrs. Hardy, tossing her fluffy white head; and she went on with her occupation of loading a tray with dainties for the young prisoner.