Page:The little blue devil (IA littlebluedevil00mackiala).pdf/78

enough, that hardening process; he did not want it all over again. No wild woodland thing ever struggled more fiercely in a silken net; no bird ever beat more hopeless wings against the gilded bars of a cage. Alison, conscious of this feeling, though not of its intensity, proceeded with her tactics.

“What are we to do, to make the time go more quickly for you? Do you care for books? I’m so fond of reading aloud, and Winthrop, my husband, never wants to listen to me! Will it bother you if I bring some books up and read to you sometimes?—we must fill in the days some way.”

“I don’t want you to waste any time over me at all, thank you. You’re—very kind”—this with an effort—“but I don’t like having to owe things to people, and I shan’t ever be able to pay you back.”

“Tony, I thought we had agreed that———”

“No, I don’t agree at all about your being under such a great obligation to me. I had just come to an end of my money”—Oh, how he was loathing every minute of this!)—“and if I must be here for weeks I don’t see how I shall be able to repay you.”

Alison said, very quietly:

“If you feel like that so strongly, even though I think your point of view is wrong, I’ll speak to the Professor and I’m sure he will be able to arrange some way of your earning money presently, or there may be something you can do for him. We’ll see.”

“Thank you.” He heaved a little sigh of relief, and there was silence for awhile. Tony lay and stared at the ceiling; Alison covertly studied the face before her—the mouth, too hard for such a child; the hollow cheeks; the lines where no lines should be till age furrowed them; the scar so dangerously near his eye.

“Poor proud darling!” she thought, tears in her eyes.