At last, at half past nine, I sprang up, determined to put an end to such an evening; and with a firm resolution not to say more than the one necessary word, "good night," I looked furtively toward my companion. He had closed the book, and leaning his face on his hand sat looking into the fire. Just so he had looked the other night when I had felt so sorry for him; and perhaps I felt the least bit sorry now. To my good night, he replied, carelessly, "Good night;" then, looking up at the clock, said:
"It is early yet."
"But I am very tired," and I moved toward the door. "I forgot to ask you, sir," I said, turning back, "whether you had any letters you would like to have answered?"
"No, thank you; none of any importance. You need not stay."
Contrition, pity, good resolutions, etc., all rushed over me; making three steps back into the room, and swallowing down the rebellious pride and temper, I came out with—
"If I am a child, sir, I am old enough to know when I have done wrong, and not too old to be willing to acknowledge it. I am very well aware that I have been rude and disrespectful to you, and I hope you will have the goodness to excuse it."
He looked at me for a moment with a puzzled air, as if he had not quite expected the sudden humiliation; though I am not sure that my attitude implied so much of humiliation as it did of determined conscientiousness. After a moment's quiet scrutiny, which I bore unflinchingly, he said:
"I am not quite sure that I understand to what you allude, nor how I come to be entitled to pass judgment on your conduct. Pray explain."
The blood mounted to my temples as I answered:
"I acknowledged my faults to you, because they were committed against you; because to you I owed respect, attention, and courtesy, which I failed to show. I owed this to you as my elder, my host, and the person who, in a manner, had charge of me."