“I don’t think we’ll go,” he said. “There won’t be any fun in it.” And he began to walk away.
Comethup felt relieved; he had not liked the expedition from the first. He said nothing, but set out to follow Brian.
But Brian chafed under a sense of degradation all day. He watched Comethup sharply, to be sure that the younger boy was not actually laughing at him; saw scorn in his eyes, when there was no scorn in Comethup’s heart. They had parted for their midday meal, and had been out again in the afternoon, still under that sense of constraint, and Comethup was diligently studying the pictures in an old book alone in the parlour of his father’s house, when Brian came leaping across the flower-beds and cried to him from outside the window:
“Come along; don’t wait for anything. I’m going to that house.”
Comethup knew perfectly well which house was meant, but he affected ignorance, and said weakly, “Which house?”
“Oh, you know; the haunted one; the one we didn’t go to to-day. Come along.”
Comethup closed the book, but kept a finger between the leaves. “It’s very late,” he urged, “and it’ll soon be getting dark.”
Brian stood with his hands on the window sill, impatiently kicking at the house wall. “You’re afraid,” he said, looking up at Comethup.
Comethup shook his head, but his drawn brows showed anxiety. “No, I’m not afraid,” he said, slowly. “But I’d rather wait until to-morrow, if you want to see the house.”
“No one ever goes to a house that’s haunted in the daytime,” said Brian. “I’m going now.”