Mrs. Hamilton looked down.
“No, Robert,” she said quietly.
“But I thought you used to be such good friends.”
He ran into the house to telephone Margaret. He had an impulse to run about the city spreading the news, when he recalled that no one knew who McCall was or had the least interest in him.
“I’m going to have some fellows over tonight,” he sang out to his mother. “Is it all right?”
“I’ll be only too glad.”
“I think I’ll call up Jack Perry. He’s back now and Tom McBride, I haven’t seen them in an age. And, of course, Howard Pinkney isn’t such a bad scout.”
“Yes, Howard is a fine chap.”
“You—you haven’t anything against the others have you—Jack and Tom?” Hamilton had perceived something in her praise of Howard that might have been interpreted as a criticism of them.
“No, not against them.” Mrs. Hamilton was silent for a moment. She stooped down to pluck off a dry leaf, then rose and brushed back a wisp of loose hair. “But I thought you were going to join the Tribe.”