"And then I shall sail way up as high as I want to. Perhaps to the
moon!"
"Yes, that will be very nice."
"What's the use of crawling about on the earth like a bug? I'd rather
be a bird."
Miss Clement nodded assent and lowered her eyes to the mutilated Bible.
But his enthusiasm was contagious. She almost believed, for a moment,
that he could do it. However, she was uncomfortable in the presence
of this barbarian. She knew, from experience, the awful frankness of
a boy; the statements he can make, and his cruel questions; questions
that upheave religions, that lay bare your secret doubtings and
impugn the wisdom and the motives of the Creator himself. A boy's
thirsty, delving little mind is never satisfied with your easy answer
that "the ways of the Almighty are inscrutable." As this interview
proceeded she realized--and to her chagrin--that there was something
about this vandal that caused her a peculiar kind of restraint and
self-consciousness--almost diffidence. Being distinctly a nervous
person and gently irritated at her own self-consciousness, Miss Clement
looked about the room, over the boy's head, with an expression
somewhat more severe than the situation required. But his instincts of
hospitality were not so easily suppressed. Pointing to a dish of fruit
on a further table, he asked:
"Won't you have an apple?"
"No, I thank you."
He seemed disappointed. Then as his eyes rested on a little music box
that lay on the table beside him, he exclaimed, with enthusiasm: "You
like good music?"
In her own voice there was less enthusiasm as she answered, "Yes,
I--think I--do."
Miss Clement suddenly realized--as happens with nervous people--that
she was annoyed by these foolish questions. Instead of replying she
straightened up and looked first at the clock, then at the boy. She
found him gazing at her earnestly, as if trying to read her thoughts.
"This music box," he said, with signs of embarrassment, "plays five
lovely tunes: The Last Rose of Summer, Hear Me, Norma, The Carnival of
Ven----"
"Not now," she interrupted.
Had her host been an older man, with a knowledge of women--if such is
possible--this unexpected change of manner would have been a warning.
"It's four o'clock," she added hastily, and her smiles had vanished.
"Are you the only person in the house?"
Taken aback, and obviously mortified by this sudden change of manner,
he took a backward step and replaced the music box on the table. In
his face, with a slight quivering of the lips, came the first signs of
embarrassment he had shown. He bowed: not the gracious, self-possessed,
courtly salutation of a kingly welcome with which he had first
greeted her, but a solemn inclination of the head, as one who humbles
himself--but gracefully--before an angry deity. And he murmured:
"I am sorry."