Part 6 (1/2)

”Dan!” cried Kitty, stopping and looking back at him anxiously.

She remembered again then that she had not seen Dan since her return.

”Did he go out?”

”Yes, he went to catch some fishes for daddy's supper. He heard you tell Betty to have a nice one ready, and he said, 'There's sure to be nothing nice in the house; there never is. I'll go and catch some trout,' and he went. Do you think he was out in all that funder and lightning?” Then, seeing Kitty's startled look, Tony grew frightened too. ”You don't fink he is hurt, do you, Kitty?” he asked anxiously.

”You don't fink Dan has been struck, do you?”

But at that moment, to their intense relief, Dan himself crossed the hall. From his appearance he might have been actually in the stream, getting the trout out without rod or line. Water was running off his hat, his clothes, and his boots. Tony heard it squis.h.i.+ng with every step he took, and thought how splendid and manly it seemed.

Kitty called out to him, but Dan did not stay to talk.

”Where's father?” he asked, turning a very flushed but very triumphant face towards them, and waving his basket proudly.

”In the dining-room,” said Kitty, and Dan hastened on. His face fell a little, though, when he saw the table, and his father already eating.

”I'm awfully sorry I'm late,” he said disappointedly. ”I thought I should have been in heaps of time. I've got you some jolly fine trout, father. I meant them for your supper. Just look! Aren't they beauties?” and he thrust his basket over the table and held it right under his father's nose. The mud and green slime dripped on tablecloth and silver and on the bread, and even on Dr. Trenire's plate and the food he was eating.

The doctor's much-tried patience gave way at last. ”Look at the mess you are making--all over my food too! Look at the filth you have brought in!” he exclaimed angrily. ”Take it away! take it away!

What do you mean by coming into the room in that condition, bringing a filthy thing like that and pus.h.i.+ng it under my very nose when you see I am eating? And why, Dan, once more, are you not here and decently neat, when a meal is ready? It is perfectly disgraceful. Here am I, and supper has been on the table I don't know how long, and only one of you is ready to sit down with me. Anthony is in bed, or somewhere else, Kitty is racing the house to find him, and you--I am ashamed of you, sir, for coming into a room in such a condition. You are perfectly hopeless. Here, take away my plate, take everything; you have quite spoilt my appet.i.te. I couldn't eat another mouthful at such a table!”

and Dr. Trenire rose in hot impatience and flung out of the room.

For a second Dan seemed unable to believe his ears, then without a word he closed his basket and walked away. He was more deeply hurt than he had ever been in his life before, and his face showed it. Kitty and Tony, hesitating in the hall, saw it, and their eyes filled with tears.

”Throw it away, will you?” he said in a choked voice, holding out the unfortunate basket to Kitty.

Kitty, knowing how she would have felt under similar circ.u.mstances, took it without looking at him; instinctive delicacy told her not to.

”Father didn't mean it,” she whispered consolingly. ”You will come down and have some supper when you have changed, won't you?”

They were not a demonstrative family; in fact, any lavishly expressed sympathy or affection would have embarra.s.sed them; but they understood each other, and most of them possessed in a marked degree the power of expressing both feelings without a word being spoken.

Dan understood Kitty, but it was too soon to be consoled yet. ”No,” he said bitterly, ”I have had supper enough, thank you,” and hurried away very fast.

It really did seem as if Kitty was not to reach the Supper-table that night. Telling Tony to go in and begin his meal, she flew off with the basket, and, heedless of anything but Dan's request, was just about to fling it away--fish, basket, and all--when she paused. It was a very good basket, and Dan had no other. Kitty hesitated, then opened it and looked in. Six fine trout lay at the bottom on a bed of bracken and wet moss, evidently placed so that they could look their best.

The sight of Dan's little arrangements brought the tears to her eyes.

No, she could not throw away what he had taken so much pride in.

She turned back and went to the kitchen. ”f.a.n.n.y,” she said, ”will you cook these for father's breakfast? Dan has caught them for him.”

”And fine and proud he was too,” said f.a.n.n.y, looking in at Dan's catch.

”He was, but he isn't now. I wish,” with a deep sigh, ”we didn't always do things the wrong way. I wonder why nothing ever comes quite right with us?” Then she turned away hastily, that Emily, who at that moment came into the kitchen, might not see the tears that would start to her eyes.

When at last Kitty sat down to the meal which she no longer wanted, every one else had left the table. She was not sorry, for it saved her from having to make a pretence of eating, and left her free to indulge in her own moods. It gave her time, too, to think over all that had happened, and might yet happen.

Before she went up to bed, though, she got a tray, and collecting on it a tempting meal, carried it to Dan's room. She hoped he would let her in, for she badly needed a talk with him, but just as she was about to knock at his door the murmur of voices within arrested her attention.

Whom could Dan have got in there? she wondered in great surprise.