Then, as he appeared so cheerfully and ignorantly at the breakfast table, Aunt Agatha's heart failed her. Her presence of mind also left her; she blurted out a few words to the effect that his father had had a bad accident, wished she had let him eat his breakfast in ignorance, hoped despairingly that he would guess the truth from her perturbation. But even this was denied her; he asked a great many questions and refused to eat till she made him, but gave no sign of suspecting anything beyond what she told him.
She saw that the suspense of waiting for his father's return would tell on him more than the worst certainty, but still she could not bring herself to break the truth to him. When at last she nerved herself to do it, it was too late.
"Come here and sit down by me, Harry," she said gently, but Harry, who was standing at one of the front windows, listlessly replied:
"Wait, there's something coming up the street."
"Just a minute, dear, I want to talk to you," said Aunt Agatha, going over and trying to push him gently away from the window. But Harry's attention was caught and he refused to move.
"I thought it might be Father. Do you think it's Father, Aunt Agatha? It moves so slowly I can't see.... Yes, it's turning in at the gate. What sort of a thing is it, anyway?..."
The next moment his own eyes answered the question, and with a little cry he toppled backward into her arms.
James' reception of the news was characteristically different. His behavior was generally referred to by the family as "wonderful." He certainly was very calm throughout. He was informed of his father's death on the Sunday morning by the headmaster of his school, to whom Aunt Agatha had telegraphed the night before.
"I suppose I'd better go home," was his first comment.
"I suppose you had," replied the schoolmaster, and he was rather at a loss for what to say next. He had certainly expected more of a demonstration than this. "Somebody had better go with you. Whom would you like to have go?"