“Oh, I'm all right, mother,” Lionel said. “I can take care of myself; you must never be afraid.”
“But how did you happen to be with Mr. Galt?” Mrs. Barry asked. “I didn't know you knew him.”
“Why, why--” but Lionel went no further. He had never lied, and the plan his sense of honor had laid for him was difficult to execute. His grandmother repeated her question in more positive tones, but, with eyes downcast, he refused to answer.
“Let him alone, mother,” Dora said, her face rigid. “It doesn't make any difference.”
“It doesn't, eh?” the old woman exclaimed, in surprise. “Well, I think you both are acting queerly. There is no reason why Lionel should not tell us when and how he met Mr. Galt. I can see by his face that he is keeping something back.”
But Dora was holding the child's head against her throbbing breast, and she threw an almost commanding glance at her mother.
“Let him alone now,” she said, firmly, and with such a sharp tone of finality that her mother stared at her in surprise and left the room.
That evening Dora prepared the child for bed. As she undressed him she scanned each piece of his clothing most carefully. She found a green smudge made from strong pressure against the turf in a most unexpected place, high up on the child's back; she discovered the imprint of soiled fingers on the broad white collar, and remarked the inconsistency of this with Lionel's immaculately clean hands; the necktie had been loose and awkwardly retied; and, most conspicuous of all, was the uncouth way the golden hair was dressed. She noted all these things without comment; but when the white bed-covers were turned down, and Lionel had said his prayers and crawled in, Dora lowered the lamp and reclined beside him. Outwardly she was calm. To the child's observation, no new thing had happened in her even life, and yet her whole being was aflame, her soul panting in suspense.
“Mother's little boy never has told her a story in all his life,” she began, as soothingly as if she were crooning him to sleep. “Isn't that nice? _Some_ little boys tell fibs to their mothers, but _my_ boy has always told the truth, and mother is so glad.”
Lionel lay still. She kissed him softly and waited. At any other time his little arms and lips would have responded, and she marked well the change to-night. Lionel did not move or speak, but simply lay with his old-young gaze gravely fixed on the ceiling where the lamp-chimney had focussed a ring of light.
