"If you do that again I shall tell father," she said, horrified.
"What do I care!" he had retorted sullenly. And it was true; the boy no longer cared what anybody might think as long as Athalie already knew and detested what he had done.
There was a garage in the neighbouring village. He spent most of his time hanging around it. Sometimes he came home reeking of oil and gasoline, sometimes his breath was tainted with tobacco and alcohol.
He was so much bigger and older than Athalie that the child had never entirely lost her awe of him. His weakness of character, his failings, and the fact that he was a trifle afraid of her opinion, combined to astonish and bewilder her.
For a long while she tried to understand the gradual but certain reversal of their relations. And one night, still more or less in awe
of him, she got out of bed and went softly into his room.
He was not asleep. The sudden apparition of his youngest sister considerably startled him, and he sat up in his ragged night-shirt and stared at her where she stood in the moonlight.
"You look like one of your own spooks!" he said. "What's the matter with you?"
"I wanted to talk with you, Jack."
"What about?"