"Well, it's a very good habit to have got into. You may be quite useful now."
"I'm damned if I'd have done it," said Leonard.
"You had to do it," said Nigel; "if you didn't ..." and a shudder passed over him.
"What?" asked his brother and sister with interest.
He flushed more deeply, and the muscles of his face quivered.
Then a surprising, terrible thing happened—so surprising and so terrible that Leonard and Janey could only stand and gape. Nigel hid his face in his hands, and began to cry.
For some moments they stared at him with blank, horror-stricken eyes. Scarcely a minute ago he had been uproarious—forgetting pain and shame in the substantial ecstasies of reunion, smothering—after the Furlonger habit—all memories of anguish in a joke. Never since his earliest manhood had they seen him cry, not even on the day they had said good-bye to him for so long. Now he was crying miserably, weakly, hopelessly—crying quietly like a child, his hands covering his eyes, his shoulders shaking a little. Then suddenly he gasped, almost whimpered—
"Don't ask me those questions. Don't ask me any more questions."
"Nigel," cried Janet, finding her tongue at last, "I'm so sorry. I didn't know you minded. Please don't cry any more—it hurts us."
"We didn't mean anything, old man," said Leonard huskily. "Do cheer up, and forget all about it."