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.
"_How's_ she different from anyone else?" he demanded. "Is she blind or
lame or sumthin'?"
Robert turned on him with exasperation.
"Oh, go and play at trains!" he said. "A child like you can't understand
anything."
William retired with dignity to the window and listened, with interest
unabated, to the rest of the conversation.
"Yes, but who is she, dear?" said their mother. "Robert, I can't _think_
how you get these big holes in your heels!"
Robert ran his hands wildly through his hair.
"I've _told_ you who she is, Mother," he said. "I've been talking about
her ever since I came into the room."
"Yes, I know, dear, but you haven't mentioned her name or anything about
her."
"Well," Robert spoke with an air of super-human patience, "she's a Miss
Cannon and she's staying with the Clives and I met her out with Mrs.
Clive this morning and she introduced me and she's the most beautiful
girl I've ever seen and she----"
"Yes," said Mrs. Brown hastily, "you told me all that."
"Well," went on the infatuated Robert, "we must have her to tea. I know
I can't marry yet--not while I'm still at college--but I could get to
know her. Not that I suppose she'd look at me. She's miles above
me--miles above anyone. She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.
You can't imagine her. You wouldn't believe me if I described her. No
one could describe her. She----"
Mrs. Brown interrupted him with haste.
"I'll ask Mrs. Clive to bring her over one afternoon. I've no more of
this blue wool, Robert. I wish you didn't have your socks such different
colours. I shall have to use mauve. It's right on the heel; it won't
show."
Robert gave a gasp of horror.
"You _can't_, Mother. How do you know it won't show? And even if it
didn't show, the thought of it--! It's--it's a crisis of my life now
I've met her. I can't go about feeling ridiculous."
"I say," said William open-mouthed. "Are you spoony on her?"
"William, don't use such vulgar expressions," said Mrs. Brown. "Robert
just feels a friendly interest in her, don't you, Robert?"
"'A friendly interest'!" groaned Robert in despair. "No one ever _tries_
to understand what I feel. After all I've told you about her and that
she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen and miles above me and
above anyone and you think I feel a 'friendly interest' in her.
It's--it's the one great passion of my life! It's----"
"Well," put in Mrs. Brown mildly, "I'll ring up Mrs. Clive and ask if
she's doing anything to-morrow afternoon."
Robert's tragic young face lit up, then he stood wrapt in thought, and a
cloud of anxiety overcast it.
"Ellen can press the trousers of my brown suit to-night, can't she? And,
Mother, could you get me some socks and a tie before to-morrow? Blue, I
think--a bright blue, you know, not too bright, but not so as you don't
notice them. I wish the laundry was a decent one. You know, a man's
collar ought to _shine_ when it's new on. They never put a shine on to
them. I'd better have some new ones for to-morrow. It's so important,
how one looks. She--people _judge_ you on how you look. They----"
Mrs. Brown laid her work aside.
"I'll go and ring up Mrs. Clive now," she said.
When she returned, William had gone and Robert was standing by the
window, his face pale with suspense, and a Napoleonic frown on his brow.
"Mrs. Clive can't come," announced Mrs. Brown in her comfortable voice,
"but Miss Cannon will come alone. It appears she's met Ethel before. So
you needn't worry any more, dear."
Robert gave a sardonic laugh.
"_Worry!_" he said, "There's plenty to worry about still. What about
William?"
"Well, what about him?"
"Well, can't he go away somewhere to-morrow? Things never go right when
William's there. You know they don't."
"The poor boy must have tea with us, dear. He'll be very good, I'm sure.
Ethel will be home then and she'll help. I'll tell William not to worry
you. I'm sure he'll be good."
* * * * *
William had received specific instructions. He was not to come into the
house till the tea-bell rang, and he was to go out and play in the
garden again directly after tea. He was perfectly willing to obey them.
He was thrilled by the thought of Robert in the role of the love-lorn
hero. He took the situation quite seriously.
He was in the garden when the visitor came up the drive. He had been
told not to obtrude himself upon her notice, so he crept up silently and
peered at her through the rhododendron bushes. The proceeding also
happened to suit his character of the moment, which was that of a Red
Indian chief.
Miss Cannon was certainly pretty. She had brown hair, brown eyes, and
dimples that came and went in her rosy cheeks. She was dressed in white
and carried a parasol. She walked up the drive, looking neither to right
nor left, till a slight movement in the bushes arrested her attention.
She turned quickly and saw a small boy's face, smeared black with burnt
cork and framed in hens' feathers tied on with tape. The dimples peeped
out.
"Hail, O great chief!" she said.
William gazed at her open-mouthed. Such intelligence on the part of a
grown-up was unusual.
[Illustration: "HAIL, O GREAT CHIEF!" SHE SAID.]
"Chief Red Hand," he supplied with a fierce scowl.
She bowed low, brown eyes alight with merriment.
"And what death awaits the poor white face who has fallen defenceless
into his hand?"
"You better come quiet to my wigwam an' see," said Red Hand darkly.
She threw a glance to the bend in the drive behind which lay the house
and with a low laugh followed him through the bushes. From one point the
drawing-room window could be seen, and there the anxious Robert stood,
pale with anxiety, stiff and upright in his newly-creased trousers (well
turned up to show the new blue socks), his soulful eyes fixed
steadfastly on the bend in the drive round which the beloved should
come. Every now and then his nervous hand wandered up to touch the new
tie and gleaming new collar, which was rather too high and too tight for
comfort, but which the shopkeeper had informed his harassed customer was
the "latest and most correct shape."
Meanwhile the beloved had reached William's "dug-out." William had made
this himself of branches cut down from the trees and spent many happy
hours in it with one or other of his friends.
"Here is the wigwam, Pale-face," he said in a sepulchral voice. "Stand
here while I decide with Snake Face and the other chiefs what's goin' to
be done to you. There's Snake Face an' the others," he added in his
natural voice, pointing to a small cluster of shrubs.
Approaching these, he stood and talked fiercely and unintelligibly for
a few minutes, turning his scowling corked face and pointing his finger
at her every now and then, as, apparently, he described his capture.
Then he approached her again.
"That was Red Indian what I was talkin' then," he explained in his
ordinary voice, then sinking it to its low, roaring note and scowling
more ferociously than ever, "Snake Face says the Pale-face must be
scalped and cooked and eat!"
He took out a penknife and opened it as though to perform the operation,
then continued, "But me and the others say that if you'll be a squaw an'
cook for us we'll let you go alive."
Miss Cannon dropped on to her knees.
"Most humble and grateful thanks, great Red Hand," she said. "I will
with pleasure be your squaw."
"I've gotter fire round here," said William proudly, leading her to the
back of the wigwam, where a small wood fire smouldered spiritlessly,
choked by a large tin full of a dark liquid.
"That, O Squaw," said Red Hand with a dramatic gesture, "is a Pale-face
we caught las' night!"
The squaw clasped her hands together.
"Oh, how _lovely_!" she said. "Is he cooking?"
Red Hand nodded. Then,
"I'll get you some feathers," he said obligingly. "You oughter have
feathers, too."
He retired into the depth of the wigwam and returned with a handful of
hen feathers. Miss Cannon took off her big shady hat and stuck the
feathers into her fluffy brown hair with a laugh.
"This is jolly!" she said. "I love Red Indians!"
"I've got some cork you can have to do your face, too," went on William
with reckless generosity. "It soon burns in the fire."
She threw a glance towards the chimneys of the house that could be seen
through the trees and shook her pretty head regretfully.
"I'm afraid I'd better not," she said sadly.
"Well," he said, "now I'll go huntin' and you stir the Pale-face and
we'll eat him when I come back. Now, I'll be off. You watch me track."
He opened his clasp-knife with a bloodthirsty flourish and, casting
sinister glances round him, crept upon his hands and knees into the
bushes. He circled about, well within his squaw's vision, obviously bent
upon impressing her. She stirred the mixture in the tin with a twig and
threw him every now and then the admiring glances he so evidently
desired.
Soon he returned, carrying over his shoulder a door-mat which he threw
down at her feet.
"A venison, O squaw," he said in a lordly voice. "Let it be cooked. I've
had it out all morning," he added in his ordinary tones; "they've not
missed it yet."
He fetched from the "wigwam" two small jagged tins and, taking the
larger tin off the fire, poured some into each.
"Now," he said, "here's some Pale-face for you, squaw."
"Oh," she said, "I'm sure he's awfully good, but----"
"You needn't be frightened of it," said William protectively. "It's
jolly good, I can tell you." He picked up the paper cover of a packet of
soup from behind the trees. "It's jus' that and water and it's jolly
good!"
"How lovely! Do they let you----?"
"They don't let me," he broke in hastily, "but there's heaps in the
larder and they don't notice one every now an' then. Go on!"
encouragingly, "I don't mind you having it! Honest, I don't! I'll get
some more soon."
Bravely she raised the tin to her lips and took a sip.
"Gorgeous!" she said, shutting her eyes. Then she drained the tin.
William's face shone with pride and happiness. But it clouded over as
the sound of a bell rang out from the house.
"Crumbs! That's tea!"
Hastily Miss Cannon took the feathers from her hair and put on her hat.
"You don't keep a looking-glass in your wigwam I suppose?" she said.
"N-no," admitted William. "But I'll get one for next time you come. I'll
get one from Ethel's room."
"Won't she mind?"
"She won't know," said William simply.
Miss Cannon smoothed down her dress.
"I'm horribly late. What will they think of me? It was awful of me to
come with you. I'm always doing awful things. That's a secret between
you and me." She gave William a smile that dazzled him. "Now come in and
we'll confess."
"I can't," said William. "I've got to wash an' come down tidy. I
promised I would. It's a special day. Because of Robert, you know. Well
_you_ know. Because of--Robert!"
He looked up at her mystified face with a significant nod.
* * * * *
Robert was frantic. He had run his hands through his hair so often that
it stood around his head like a spiked halo.
"We _can't_ begin without her," he said. "She'll think we're awful. It
will--put her off me for ever. She's not used to being treated like
that. She's the sort of girl people don't begin without. She's the most
beautiful girl I've ever met in all my life and you--my own
mother--treat her like this. You may be ruining my life. You've no idea
what this means to me. If you'd seen her you'd feel more sympathy. I
simply can't describe her--I----"
"I said four o'clock, Robert," said Mrs. Brown firmly, "and it's after
half-past. Ethel, tell Emma she can ring the bell and bring in tea."
The perspiration stood out on Robert's brow.
"It's--the downfall of all my hopes," he said hoarsely.
Then, a few minutes after the echoes of the tea-bell died away, the
front door bell rang sharply. Robert stroked his hair down with wild,
unrestrained movements of his hands, and summoned a tortured smile to
his lips.
Miss Cannon appeared upon the threshold, bewitching and demure.
"Aren't I perfectly disgraceful?" she said with her low laugh. "To tell
the truth, I met your little boy in the drive and I've been with him
some time. He's a perfect little dear, isn't he?"
Her brown eyes rested on Robert. Robert moistened his lips and smiled
the tortured smile, but was beyond speech.
"Yes, I know Ethel and I met your son--_yesterday_, wasn't it?"
Robert murmured unintelligibly, raising one hand to the too tight
collar, and then bowed vaguely in her direction.
Then they went in to tea.
William, his hair well brushed, the cork partially washed from his face,
and the feathers removed, arrived a few minutes later. Conversation was
carried on chiefly by Miss Cannon and Ethel. Robert racked his brain for
some striking remark, something that would raise him in her esteem far
above the ranks of the ordinary young man, but nothing came. Whenever
her brown eyes rested on him, however, he summoned the mirthless smile
to his lips and raised a hand to relieve the strain of the imprisoning
collar. Desperately he felt the precious moments passing and his passion
yet unrevealed, except by his eyes, whose message he was afraid she had
not read.
As they rose from tea, William turned to his mother, with an anxious
sibilant whisper,
"Ought _I_ to have put on my best suit _too_?"
The demure lights danced in Miss Cannon's eyes and the look the
perspiring Robert sent him would have crushed a less bold spirit.
William had quite forgotten the orders he had received to retire from
the scene directly after tea. He was impervious to all hints. He
followed in the train of the all-conquering Miss Cannon to the
drawing-room and sat on the sofa with Robert who had taken his seat next
his beloved.
"Are you--er--fond of reading, Miss Cannon?" began Robert with a painful
effort.
"I--_wrote_ a tale once," said William boastfully, leaning over Robert
before she could answer. "It was a jolly good one. I showed it to some
people. I'll show it to you if you like. It began with a pirate on a
raft an' he'd stole some jewel'ry and the king the jewels belonged to
was coming after him on a steamer and jus' when he was comin' up to him
he jumped into the water and took the jewls with him an' a fish eat the
jewls and the king caught it an'," he paused for breath.
"I'd love to read it!" said Miss Cannon.
Robert turned sideways, and resting an arm on his knee to exclude the
persistent William, spoke in a husky voice.
"What is your favourite flower, Miss Cannon?"
William's small head was craned round Robert's arm.
"I've gotter garden. I've got Virginia Stock grow'n all over it. It
grows up in no time. An' must'erd 'n cress grows in no time, too. I like
things what grow quick, don't you? You get tired of waiting for the
other sorts, don't you?"
Robert rose desperately.
"Would you care to see the garden and green-houses, Miss Cannon?" he
said.
"I'd love to," said Miss Cannon.
With a threatening glare at William, Robert led the way to the garden.
And William, all innocent animation, followed.
[Illustration: WILLIAM'S SMALL HEAD WAS CRANED ROUND ROBERT'S ARM. "I
LIKE THINGS WHAT GROW QUICK, DON'T YOU?" HE SAID--ALL INNOCENT
ANIMATION.]
"Can you tie knots what can't come untied?" he demanded.
"No," she said, "I wish I could."
"I can. I'll show you. I'll get a piece of string and show you
afterwards. It's easy but it wants practice, that's all. An' I'll teach
you how to make aeroplanes out of paper what fly in the air when it's
windy. That's quite easy. Only you've gotter be careful to get 'em the
right size. I can make 'em and I can make lots of things out of match
boxes an' things an'----"
The infuriated Robert interrupted.
"These are my father's roses. He's very proud of them."
"They're beautiful."
"Well, wait till you see my Virginia Stock! that's all. Wait----"
"Will you have this tea-rose, Miss Cannon?" Robert's face was purple as
he presented it. "It--it--er--it suits you. You--er--flowers and
you--that is--I'm sure--you love flowers--you should--er--always have
flowers. If I----"
"An' I'll get you those red ones and that white one," broke in the
equally infatuated William, determined not to be outshone. "An' I'll get
you some of my Virginia Stock. An' I don't give my Virginia Stock to
_anyone_," he added with emphasis.
When they re-entered the drawing-room, Miss Cannon carried a large
bouquet of Virginia Stock and white and red roses which completely hid
Robert's tea-rose. William was by her side, chatting airily and
confidently. Robert followed--a pale statue of despair.
In answer to Robert's agonised glance, Mrs. Brown summoned William to
her corner, while Robert and Miss Cannon took their seat again upon the
sofa.
"I hope--I hope," said Robert soulfully, "I hope your stay here is a
long one?"
"Well, why sha'n't I jus' _speak_ to her?" William's whisper was loud
and indignant.
"'Sh, dear!" said Mrs. Brown.
"I should like to show you some of the walks around here," went on
Robert desperately with a fearful glance towards the corner where
William stood in righteous indignation before his mother. "If I could
have that--er--pleasure--er--honour?"
"I was only jus' _speaking_ to her," went on William's voice. "I wasn't
doin' any harm, was I? Only _speaking_ to her!"
The silence was intense. Robert, purple, opened his lips to say
something, anything to drown that horrible voice, but nothing would
come. Miss Cannon was obviously listening to William.
"Is no one else ever to _speak_ to her." The sibilant whisper, raised in
indignant appeal, filled all the room. "Jus' 'cause Robert's fell in
love with her?"
The horror of the moment haunted Robert's nights and days for weeks to
come.
Mrs. Brown coughed hastily and began to describe at unnecessary length
the ravages of the caterpillars upon her husband's favourite rose-tree.
William withdrew with dignity to the garden a minute later and Miss
Cannon rose from the sofa.
"I must be going, I'm afraid," she said with a smile.
Robert, anguished and overpowered, rose slowly.
"You must come again some time," he said weakly but with passion
undaunted.
"I will," she said. "I'm longing to see more of William. I adore
William!"
* * * * *
They comforted Robert's wounded feelings as best they could, but it was
Ethel who devised the plan that finally cheered him. She suggested a
picnic on the following Thursday, which happened to be Robert's birthday
and incidentally the last day of Miss Cannon's visit, and the picnic
party was to consist of--Robert, Ethel, Mrs. Clive and Miss Cannon, and
William was not even to be told where it was to be. The invitation was
sent that evening and Robert spent the week dreaming of picnic lunches
and suggesting impossible dainties of which the cook had never heard. It
was not until she threatened to give notice that he reluctantly agreed
to leave the arrangements to her. He sent his white flannels (which were
perfectly clean) to the laundry with a note attached, hinting darkly at
legal proceedings if they were not sent back, spotless, by Thursday
morning. He went about with an expression of set and solemn purpose upon
his frowning countenance. William he utterly ignored. He bought a book
of poems at a second-hand bookshop and kept them on the table by his
bed.
They saw nothing of Miss Cannon in the interval, but Thursday dawned
bright and clear, and Robert's anxious spirits rose. He was presented
with a watch and chain by his father and with a bicycle by his mother
and a tin of toffee (given not without ulterior motive) by William.
They met Mrs. Clive and Miss Cannon at the station and took tickets to a
village a few miles away whence they had decided to walk to a shady spot
on the river bank.
William's dignity was slightly offended by his pointed exclusion from
the party, but he had resigned himself to it, and spent the first part
of the morning in the character of Chief Red Hand among the rhododendron
bushes. He had added an ostrich feather found in Ethel's room to his
head-dress, and used almost a whole cork on his face. He wore the
door-mat pinned to his shoulders.
After melting some treacle toffee in rain-water over his smoking fire,
adding orange juice and drinking the resulting liquid, he tired of the
game and wandered upstairs to Robert's bedroom to inspect his birthday
presents. The tin of toffee was on the table by Robert's bed. William
took one or two as a matter of course and began to read the love-poems.
He was horrified a few minutes later to see the tin empty, but he
fastened the lid with a sigh, wondering if Robert would guess who had
eaten them. He was afraid he would. Anyway he'd given him them. And
anyway, he hadn't known he was eating them.
He then went to the dressing-table and tried on the watch and chain at
various angles and with various postures. He finally resisted the
temptation to wear them for the rest of the morning and replaced them on
the dressing-table.
Then he wandered downstairs and round to the shed, where Robert's new
bicycle stood in all its glory. It was shining and spotless and William
gazed at it in awe and admiration. He came to the conclusion that he
could do it no possible harm by leading it carefully round the house.
Encouraged by the fact that Mrs. Brown was out shopping, he walked it
round the house several times. He much enjoyed the feeling of importance
and possession that it gave him. He felt loth to part with it. He
wondered if it was very hard to ride. He had tried to ride one once when
he was staying with an aunt. He stood on a garden bench and with
difficulty transferred himself from that to the bicycle seat. To his
surprise and delight he rode for a few yards before he fell off. He
tried again and fell off again. He tried again and rode straight into a
holly bush. He forgot everything in his determination to master the art.
He tried again and again. He fell off or rode into the holly bush again
and again. The shining black paint of the bicycle was scratched, the
handle bars were slightly bent and dulled; William himself was bruised
and battered but unbeaten.
At last he managed to avoid the fatal magnet of the holly bush, to steer
an unsteady ziz-zag course down the drive and out into the road. He had
had no particular intention of riding into the road. In fact he was
still wearing his befeathered headgear, blacked face, and the mat pinned
to his shoulders. It was only when he was actually in the road that he
realised that retreat was impossible, that he had no idea how to get off
the bicycle.
What followed was to William more like a nightmare than anything else.
He saw a motor-lorry coming towards him and in sudden panic turned down
a side street and from that into another side street. People came out of
their houses to watch him pass. Children booed or cheered him and ran
after him in crowds. And William went on and on simply because he could
not stop. His iron nerve had failed him. He had not even the presence of
mind to fall off. He was quite lost. He had left the town behind him and
did not know where he was going. But wherever he went he was the centre
of attraction. The strange figure with blackened, streaked face, mat
flying behind in the wind and a head-dress of feathers from which every
now and then one floated away, brought the population to its doors. Some
said he had escaped from an asylum, some that he was an advertisement of
something. The children were inclined to think he was part of a circus.
William himself had passed beyond despair. His face was white and set.
His first panic had changed to a dull certainty that this would go on
for ever. He would never know how to stop. He supposed he would go right
across England. He wondered if he were near the sea now. He couldn't be
far off. He wondered if he would ever see his mother and father again.
And his feet pedalled mechanically along. They did not reach the pedals
at their lowest point; they had to catch them as they came up and send
them down with all their might.
It was very tiring; William wondered if people would be sorry if he
dropped down dead.
I have said that William did not know where he was going.
_But Fate knew._
The picnickers walked down the hill from the little station to the river
bank. It was a beautiful morning. Robert, his heart and hopes high,
walked beside his goddess, revelling in his nearness to her though he
could think of nothing to say to her. But Ethel and Mrs. Clive chattered
gaily.
"We've given William the slip," said Ethel with a laugh. "He's no idea
where we've gone even!"
"I'm sorry," said Miss Cannon, "I'd have loved William to be here."
"You don't know him," said Ethel fervently.
"What a beautiful morning it is!" murmured Robert, feeling that some
remark was due from him. "Am I walking too fast for you--Miss Cannon?"
"Oh, no."
"May I carry your parasol for you?" he enquired humbly.
"Oh, no, thanks."
He proposed a boat on the river after lunch, and it appeared that Miss
Cannon would love it, but Ethel and Mrs. Clive would rather stay on the
bank.
His cup of bliss was full. It would be his opportunity of sealing
lifelong friendship with her, of arranging a regular correspondence, and
hinting at his ultimate intentions. He must tell her that, of course,
while he was at college he was not in a position to offer his heart and
hand, but if she could wait---- He began to compose speeches in his
mind.
They reached the bank and opened the luncheon baskets. Unhampered by
Robert the cook had surpassed herself. They spread the white cloth and
took up their position around it under the shade of the trees.
Just as Robert was taking up a plate of sandwiches to hand them with a
courteous gesture to Miss Cannon, his eyes fell upon the long, white
road leading from the village to the riverside and remained fixed there,
his face frozen with horror. The hand that held the plate dropped
lifelessly back again on to the table-cloth. Their eyes followed his. A
curious figure was cycling along the road--a figure with blackened face
and a few drooping feathers on its head, and a door-mat flying in the
wind. A crowd of small children ran behind cheering. It was a figure
vaguely familiar to them all.
"It can't be," said Robert hoarsely, passing a hand over his brow.
No one spoke.
It came nearer and nearer. There was no mistaking it.
"William!" gasped four voices.
William came to the end of the road. He did not turn aside to either of
the roads by the riverside. He did not even recognise or look at them.
With set, colourless face he rode on to the river bank, and straight
amongst them. They fled from before his charge. He rode over the
table-cloth, over the sandwiches, patties, rolls and cakes, down the
bank and into the river.
* * * * *
They rescued him and the bicycle. Fate was against Robert even there. It
was a passing boatman who performed the rescue. William emerged soaked
to the skin, utterly exhausted, but feeling vaguely heroic. He was not
in the least surprised to see them. He would have been surprised at
nothing. And Robert wiped and examined his battered bicycle in impotent
fury in the background while Miss Cannon pillowed William's dripping
head on her arm, fed him on hot coffee and sandwiches and called him "My
poor darling Red Hand!"
[Illustration: HE RODE OVER THE TABLE-CLOTH, OVER THE SANDWICHES AND
PATTIES, DOWN THE BANK AND INTO THE RIVER.]
She insisted on going home with him. All through the journey she
sustained the character of his faithful squaw. Then, leaving a casual
invitation to Robert and Ethel to come over to tea, she departed to
pack.
Mrs. Brown descended the stairs from William's room with a tray on which
reposed a half-empty bowl of gruel, and met Robert in the hall.
"Robert," she remonstrated, "you really needn't look so upset."
Robert glared at her and laughed a hollow laugh.
"Upset!" he echoed, outraged by the inadequacy of the expression. "You'd
be upset if your life was ruined. You'd be upset. I've a _right_ to be
upset."
He passed his hand desperately through his already ruffled hair.
"You're going there to tea," she reminded him.
"Yes," he said bitterly, "with other people. Who can talk with other
people there? No one can. I'd have talked to her on the river. I'd got
heaps of things ready in my mind to say. And William comes along and
spoils my whole life--and my bicycle. And she's the most beautiful girl
I've ever seen in my life. And I've wanted that bicycle for ever so
long and it's not fit to ride."
"But poor William has caught a very bad chill, dear, so you oughtn't to
feel bitter to him. And he'll have to pay for your bicycle being mended.
He'll have no pocket money till it's paid for."
"You'd think," said Robert with a despairing gesture in the direction of
the hall table and apparently addressing it, "you'd think four grown-up
people in a house could keep a boy of William's age in order, wouldn't
you? You'd think he wouldn't be allowed to go about spoiling people's
lives and--and ruining their bicycles. Well, he jolly well won't do it
again," he ended darkly.
Mrs. Brown, proceeded in the direction of the kitchen.
"Robert," she said soothingly over her shoulder, "you surely want to be
at peace with your little brother, when he's not well, don't you?"
"_Peace?_" he said. Robert turned his haggard countenance upon her as
though his ears must have deceived him. "_Peace!_ I'll wait. I'll wait
till he's all right and going about; I won't start till then.
But--peace! It's not peace, it's an _armistice_--that's all."