"Oh, what?" she demanded, with a sweet eagerness that was as young as
his own.
"You could never guess," he assured her. "Tonight, at supper,
grandfather suddenly told me that he wanted me to travel for a while--
he wanted me to go away from Old Chester. I was perfectly amazed. 'Go
hunt up a publisher for your truck,' he said. He always calls the
drama my 'truck,'" Sam said snickering; "but the main thing,
evidently, was to have me get away from home. To improve my mind, I
suppose. He said all gentlemen ought to travel. To live in one place
all the time was very narrowing, he said. I told him I hadn't any
money, and he said he'd give me some. He said, 'anything to get you
away.' It wasn't very flattering, was it?"
Helena's face flashed into suspicion. "Why did he want to get you
away?" she asked coldly. There was an alarmed alertness in her voice
that made the boy look at her.
"He said he wanted me to 'be able to know cakes and ale when I saw
them,'" Sam quoted. "Isn't that just like grandfather?"
"Know cakes and ale!" she stammered, and then looked at him furtively.
She took one of the little hand-screens from the mantel, and held it
so that he could not see her face. For a minute the pleasant firelit
silence fell between them.
"Oh, listen," Sam said in a whisper; "do you hear the sap singing in
the log?" He bent forward with parted lips, intent upon the exquisite
sound--a dream of summer leaves rustling and blowing in the wind. He
turned his limpid stag's eyes to hers to feel her pleasure.
"I think," Mrs. Richie said with an effort that made her voice hard,
"that it would be an excellent thing for you to go away."
"And leave you?"
"Please don't talk that way. Your grandfather is quite right."
The boy smiled. "I suppose you really can't understand? It's part of
your loveliness that you can't. If you could, you would know that I
can't go away. I told him I was much obliged, but I couldn't leave Old
Chester."
"Oh, please! you mustn't be foolish. I don't like you when you are
foolish. Will you please remember how much older I am than you? Let's
talk of something else. Let's talk about the little boy who is coming
to visit me--his name is David."