At that moment his eye fell upon his boot carelessly displayed and, to his horror, beheld there a gaping crack. This discovery drove all desire for conversation at once out of his head. By a covert movement he drew the offending shoe up under the shadow of the other.
"You hate this, don't you?" said a laughing voice.
He turned, blushing, to find Miss McCarty's dark eyes alive with amusement.
"Oh, now, I say, really——" he began.
"Of course, you loathe being dragged out this way," she said, cutting in. "Confess!"
Dink began to laugh guiltily.
"That's better," said Miss McCarty approvingly. "Now we shall get on better."
"How did you know?" said Dink, immensely mystified.
Miss McCarty wisely withheld this information, and before he knew it Dink was in the midst of a conversation, all his embarrassment forgot. The game ended—it had never been really important—and Dink found himself, actually to his regret, moving toward the Lodge.
There, as he was saying good-by with a Chesterfieldian air, Tough plucked him by the sleeve.