"It's a piece of rank tyranny," said Tom, between his teeth. "I won't submit to it, and I shall tell father so this minute. I won't be planned for over my head."
He had accepted the facts as if Joan had told him of them in so many words. Joan had a vague sense that she was being horribly wronged, or that she was wronging some one, her over-tender conscience leading her to settle in the latter conviction. She was trying to clasp Tom's arm and hold him back with sobbing entreaties, but he would not be held. The little baby sister, attracted half pleasurably by the emotion she saw between her elders, had drawn near, and was staring up at them round-eyed. Tom stubbed his toe over her as he made for the door, and did not stop for more than a hasty glance, which told him the baby was more angry than hurt. It was Joan who picked up the child, and the two sobbed together, with their faces tucked each into the other's soft neck.
"Oh," sobbed the elder sister, "don't cry, little sister, don't cry. Big sister wants to think!"
Tom meantime was allowed no preparation between his discovery and his interview with his father, for he stumbled against Mr. Hegan in the lower hall as he had on the baby in the nursery, with the difference that the father not only withstood the shock, but caught his son by the shoulder, steadying him. So the two came face to face and eye to eye in actual arm's-length of each other.
"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Hegan; and Tom knew he was not referring to their bodily encounter.
"Joan has been telling me—" he blurted out.
Mr. Hegan's hands dropped. He knew at once what was referred to. "Joan told you!" he exclaimed.
Tom recovered his wits and his generosity. "No, no! I mean I wormed it out of her. She did not mean to tell anything."
"Did you twist her arm or pinch her?"
"Father!"