“Before he ran away?” echoed Roger.
“Yes; to escape being sent to the reformatory.”
Some of the boys muttered, “Oh!” and “Ah!” and one of them said, “He looks it!” Those close to Stone drew off a bit, as if there was contamination in the air. Immediately they regarded him with disdain and aversion, and he looked in vain for one sympathetic face. Even Roger Eliot’s grave features had hardened, and he made no effort to conceal his displeasure.
Sudden rage and desperation seemed to swell Ben’s heart to the point of bursting. The pallor left his face; it flushed, and from crimson it turned to purple. He felt a fearful desire to leap upon his enemy, throttle him, strike him down, trample out his life, and silence him forever. His eyes glared, and the expression on his face was so terrible that one or two of the boys muttered their alarm and drew off yet farther.
“He’s going to fight!” whispered Spotty Davis, the words coming with a whistling sound through his missing teeth.
Ben heard this, and immediately another change came upon him. His hands, which had been clenched and half-lifted, opened and fell at his sides. He bowed his head, and his air was that of utter dejection and hopelessness.
Bern Hayden observed every change, and now he laughed shortly, cuttingly. “You see, he doesn’t deny it, Eliot,” he said. “He can’t deny it. If he did, I could produce proof. You’d need only to ask my father.”
“I’m sorry to hear this,” said the captain of the eleven, although to Ben it seemed there was no regret in his voice. “Of course we don’t want such a fellow on the team.”
“I should say not! If you took him, you couldn’t keep me. I wouldn’t play on the same team with the son of a jail-bird.”
“What’s that?” cried Roger. “Do you mean to say his father——”