interesting things done to him could
mitigate--namely, a vision of himself in the same plight with that person.

Now it was that he began to hear Them all about him. They walked
stealthily near, passed him with sinister rustlings, and whispered over
him. If They had only talked out--but they whispered--even laughing,
crying and singing in whispers. This horror, of course, was not long to
be endured. Yet, even so, with increasing myriads of Them all about,
rustling and whispering their awful laughs and cries--it was no
ignominious rout. With considerable deliberation he folded the carpet,
placed it in the box with his other treasure, and started at a pace which
may, perhaps, have quickened a little, yet was never undignified--never
more than a moderately fast trudge.

He wondered sadly if Clytie would get up to unlock the door for him so
late at night. As for Penny, things could never be the same between them
again.

He was astounded to see lights burning and the house open--how weird for
them to have supper at such an hour! He concealed his box in the
grape-arbour and slunk through the kitchen into the dining-room. Probably
they had gotten up in the middle of the night, out of tardy alarm for him.
It served them right. Yet they seemed hardly to notice him when he slid
awkwardly into his chair. He looked calculatingly over the table and
asked, in tones that somehow seemed to tell of injury, of personal
affront:

"What you having supper for at this time of night?"

His grandfather regarded him now not unkindly, while Clytie seemed
confused.

"It's more'n long past midnight!" he insisted.

"Huh! it ain't only a quarter past seven," put in his superior brother.
He seemed about to say more, but a glance from the grandfather silenced
him.

So _that_ was as late as he had stayed--a quarter after seven? He was
ready now to rage at any taunt, and began to eat in haughty silence. He
was still eating when his grandfather and Allan left the table, and then
he began to feel a little grateful that they had not noticed or asked
annoying questions, or tried to be funny or anything. Over a final dish of
plum preserves and an imposing segment of marble cake he relented so far
as to tell Clytie something of his adventures--especially since she had
said that the big hall-clock was very likely slow--that it must surely be
a lot later than a quarter past seven. The circumstances had combined to
produce a narrative not entirely per