The silence became oppressive. Mr. Morgan, with an air of acute misery and embarra.s.sment, shifted his feet and coughed. Ethel looked at the clock. Then--
"Was it raining when you came, Mr. Morgan?"
"Raining? Er--no. No--not at all."
Silence.
"I thought it looked like rain this afternoon."
"Yes, of course. Er--no, not at all."
Silence.
"It does make the roads so bad round here when it rains."
"Yes." Mr. Morgan put up a hand as though to loosen his collar.
"Er--very bad."
"Almost impa.s.sable."
"Er--quite."
Silence again.
Inside the drawing-room, Mr. Brown was growing restive.
"Is dinner to be kept waiting for that youth all night? Quarter past seven! You know it"s just what I can"t stand--having my meals interfered with. Is my digestion to be ruined simply because this young nincomp.o.o.p chooses to pay his social calls at seven o"clock at night?"
"Then we must ask him to dinner," said Mrs. Brown, desperately. "We really must."
"We must _not_," said Mr. Brown. "Can"t I stay away from the office for one day with a headache, without having to entertain all the young jacka.s.ses for miles around." The telephone bell rang. He raised his hands above his head.
"Oh----"
"I"ll go, dear," said Mrs. Brown hastily.
She returned with a worried frown on her brow.
"It"s Mrs. Clive," she said. "She says Joan has been very sick because of some horrible sweets William gave her, and she said she was so sorry to hear about William and hoped he"d be better soon. I couldn"t quite make it out, but it seems that William has been telling them that he had to go and see a doctor about his lungs and the doctor said they were very weak and he"d have to be careful."
Mr. Brown sat up and looked at her. "But--why--on--earth?" he said slowly.
"I don"t know, dear," said Mrs. Brown, helplessly. "I don"t know anything about it."
"He"s mad," said Mr. Brown with conviction. "Mad. It"s the only explanation."
Then came the opening and shutting of the front door and Ethel entered.
She was very flushed.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM WAS HAPPILY AND QUIETLY ENGAGED IN BURNING THE PAINT OFF HIS BEDROOM DOOR.]
"He"s gone," she said. "Mother, it"s simply horrible! He didn"t tell me much, but it seems that William actually went to his house and told him that I wanted to see him alone at seven o"clock this evening. I"ve hardly spoken to William to-day. He couldn"t have misunderstood anything I said. And he actually took a flower with him--a dreadful-looking rosebud--and said I"d sent it. I simply didn"t know where to look or what to say. It was horrible!"
Mrs. Brown sat gazing weakly at her daughter.
Mr. Brown rose with the air of a man goaded beyond endurance.
"Where _is_ William?" he said shortly.
"I don"t know, but I thought I heard him go upstairs some time ago."
William _was_ upstairs. For the last twenty minutes he had been happily and quietly engaged upon his bedroom door with a lighted taper in one hand and penknife in the other. There was no doubt about it. By successful experiment he had proved that that was the way you got old paint off. When Mr. Brown came upstairs he had entirely stripped one panel of its paint.
An hour later William sat in the back garden on an upturned box sucking, with a certain dogged defiance, the last and dirtiest of the Gooseberry Eyes. Sadly he reviewed the day. It had not been a success. His generosity to the little girl next door had been misconstrued into an attempt upon her life, his efforts to help on his only sister"s love affair had been painfully misunderstood, lastly because (among other things) he had discovered a perfectly scientific method of removing old paint, he had been brutally a.s.saulted by a violent and unreasonable parent. Suddenly William began to wonder if his father drank. He saw himself, through a mist of pathos, as a Drunkard"s child. He tried to imagine his father weeping over him in Hospital and begging his forgiveness. It was a wonder he wasn"t there now, anyway. His shoulders drooped--his whole att.i.tude became expressive of extreme dejection.
Inside the house, his father, reclining at length in an armchair, discoursed to his wife on the subject of his son. One hand was pressed to his aching brow, and the other gesticulating freely. "He"s insane,"
he said, "stark, raving insane. You ought to take him to a doctor and get his brain examined. Look at him to-day. He begins by knocking me into the middle of the rhododendron bushes--under no provocation, mind you. I hadn"t spoken to him. Then he tries to poison that nice little thing next door with some vile stuff I thought I"d thrown away. Then he goes about telling people he"s consumptive. He looks it, doesn"t he?
Then he takes extraordinary messages and love tokens from Ethel to strange young men and brings them here just when we"re going to begin dinner, and then goes round burning and hacking at the doors. Where"s the sense in it--in any of it? They"re the acts of a lunatic--you ought to have his brain examined."
Mrs. Brown cut off her darning wool and laid aside the sock she had just finished darning.
"It certainly sounds very silly, dear," she said mildly. "But there might be some explanation of it all, if only we knew. Boys are such funny things."
She looked at the clock and went over to the window, "William!" she called. "It"s your bed-time, dear."
William rose sadly and came slowly into the house.
"Good night, Mother," he said; then he turned a mournful and reproachful eye upon his father.
"Good night, Father," he said. "Don"t think about what you"ve done, I for----"
He stopped and decided, hastily but wisely, to retire with all possible speed.
CHAPTER II
WILLIAM THE INTRUDER
"She"s different from everybody else in the world," stammered Robert ecstatically. "You simply couldn"t describe her. No one could!"
His mother continued to darn his socks and made no comment.
Only William, his young brother, showed interest.