He sat staring in front of him. “No,” he said at last, in a low voice. “I would rather not come.”
His manner, even more than his words, struck his companion. She glanced at him in surprise.
“Why?” she began, and stopped. There was a silence.
“Miss Hegan,” he said at last, “I might make conventional excuses. I might say that I have engagements; that I am very busy. Ordinarily one does not find it worth while to tell the truth in this social world of ours. But somehow I feel impelled to deal frankly with you.”
He did not look at her. Her eyes were fixed upon him in wonder. “What is it?” she asked.
And he replied, “I would rather not meet your father again.”
“Why! Has anything happened between you and father?” she exclaimed in dismay.
“No,” he answered; “I have not seen your father since I had lunch with you in Newport.”
“Then what is it?”
He paused a moment. “Miss Hegan,” he began, “I have had a painful experience in this panic. I have lived through it in a very dreadful way. I cannot get over it—I cannot get the images of suffering out of my mind. It is a very real and a very awful thing to me—this wrecking of the lives of tens of thousands of people. And so I am hardly fitted for the amenities of social life just at present.”