There was a sort of lift and draw to the way he took her hand; at the same time his shoulders and head bent down upon her. This thing that he was playing to-night was college boy—clumsy subtlety of a big boy coming home and greeting his sister—seeing in her, at the moment of greeting, something of the charm other boys might see. He walked around her under the light, laughing, apologizing, making a humorous picture of his own tension at The Public Square that afternoon.
“I went there like an anarchist,” he laughed. “I was prepared to get my answer or blow up the place. I had to laugh afterwards the way I seized upon you.”
“I read the Tunis story,” she said. “Of course, you know it’s really unimportant what I think. I liked it well enough, but wasn’t carried away. I felt the color; in fact, color is the main asset of the story, but it seemed a bit thick——”
He laughed aloud. He was bending to her again, and most benignly, college big brother still in his manner and voice.
“I could tone that down, of course. The trouble is to get a thing like that straight, when you know that part of Africa as I do. I ought to have kept off Tunis, that’s the truth of it.”
“You have really been there?”
“That’s the worst of it, Miss Musser,” he laughed. “I went through hell for that story. Too much feeling to write with, you understand.”
Pidge was awed at her own error. She had been so convinced that the color was faked that she had judged the whole story on that basis.
“I’ve already asked too much of you. I’m sorry,” he added ingenuously. “One can’t force his things through this way. Why, I’d have given the whole six stories to The Public Square for a hundred dollars, and taken the cheapening that comes to an author from a trick like that. That’s how I needed an answer.”
He had glanced up at the light as he spoke, a white, haggard smile, that bloodless look around the mouth. Pity caught and controlled her. She had done him an injustice already.