How horrified they had all been when they thought Mr. Charles Keeler had been an inmate of jails. Was it any worse to have committed a crime and have been punished for it, than to commit the crime and not be found out?
For a moment or two he was—shall I call it tempted?—to go back to his brother’s room, return the three dollars and confess the whole thing. Then he thought of New York, of his induction to a college town, of his promise to Harrington to meet him at the station.
“No; I must go now,” he reflected. “I can call it sowing my wild oats,” and he undressed as quickly as possible and got into bed, as if fearful that his repentant tendencies would conquer in spite of him.
He was very quiet the next day. About ten o’clock Harrington came in to see him. It was the first time he had ever been to the house. Rex had not asked him, thinking he had no special attractions to offer him.
Mrs. Pell and the girls were out shopping. Roy was down at the office with Syd. Rex asked Harrington if he would like to come up in his room.
“Of course I would. A fellow’s generally curious about the inside of a house when he’s been looking on the outside of it half the days of his life.”
So Rex took him up stairs. He admired the “den,” as he called it, immensely.
“Wait till you see mine at Yale,” he added, as he struck a match to light his inveterate cigarette. “I don’t do much fixing up at home here, I’m here so little. By the way, you don’t mind me smoking, do you?”
“Oh, no,” replied Rex faintly.
Nevertheless, he was wondering what his mother would say if the odor still lingered when she came. Sydney did not smoke at all, and the entire family abominated cigarettes.