Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/116

 tragedy of the afternoon must have gone home to her. She was a good sport! With a warm glow he hurried up to where she sat, and sank down beside her, his stifling sense of isolation gone.

She lifted the sweet, flower-like mask of her youth to him, her eyes gleaming in the half-light of the stairs. But at the moment, Neale had forgotten whether she was a girl or a boy. She was a good sport. That was what he needed. He started to speak, but a shout of laughter burst out of the room below them. They looked down. In the center of the vociferously amused circle of spectators, Don was making fun of his late adversary's gawky manners and poor eye-sight. He had a racket in his hand, and glaring through it with a burlesque of Peterson's intent short-sighted gaze, he was mimicking the school-boy's strained awkward position at the net.

Neale fell back appalled, and looked to Natalie for sympathy and understanding.

Natalie had also leaned forward, and as they turned towards each other, her face was so close to his that he could see the peach-like bloom on her cheeks.

All the pretty face was quivering with mirth. "Isn't Don the wittiest man!"

Neale got up stiffly and walked down the stairs without a word. Nobody in the crowd of laughing boys and girls paid the least attention to his silent passage through them. He went out on the porch, the beating down-pour of the rain suddenly loud in his ears. Oh, all the better! He'd like getting soaked.

He found his wheel on the side-porch, mounted it without troubling to light his lamp or turn up his coat collar, and delighting in the clammy discomfort of the streaming water, pedaled stolidly over the nine miles to his home.

Alone in his room he took off his steaming clothes, rubbed down and got into pajamas and a bath-robe.

"Crittenden," he said sternly, "the world is no place for you. You're a lone wolf. A lone wolf."