"Oh, well," he said. "Who cares?"
She caught up her hat frantically. "It will take us an hour to get back. The Kimballs"
He came down to realities, troubled by her alarm. "I know a short cut."
"Come! Quick! We must hurry."
He started off confidently on his "short cut"; and she followed, pinning her hat as she went.
They lost their way in the green twilight of the woods. It was dusk before they came out upon an unknown road and saw their street-car line. It was almost dark when he left her reluctantly, at the Kimball gate. And when he was sitting at his window, his lamp unlighted—smiling at the sky above the spire of St. Stephen's—Mrs. Kimball was saying to the defiant girl: "Very well. Very well. I'll write to your mother at once, then. I shall no longer be responsible for you, if you do such things. That will do."
XI
Although he had been late for supper, Mrs. Stewart had kept him a plate of potatoes and meat warm in the oven, and he had eaten them without thanking her for the trouble she had taken for him, and without paying any attention to her complaint that Conroy had not yet come to the table. And now, shut in his room, he remembered Conroy only to pity him for having missed
