Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/278

 such heavy eyes: again Evan dropped them, and shook a head that looked heavier still.

"Oh, no, I'm not. I rather wish I was!" he muttered bitterly.

"Why? What's happened? What's wrong?"

Evan flung up his hangdog head in sudden desperation.

"I'm in a frightful scrape!"

"Not you, Evan!"

"I am, though."

"What sort of scrape?"

"I don't know how to tell you. I don't know what you'll think."

Jan got him into the arm-chair, and took the other one himself. It was something to feel that Evan cared what he thought.

"Come! I don't suppose it's anything so very bad," said he, encouragingly.

"Bad enough to prevent me from playing to-day, I'm afraid."

"You surely don't mean—that anybody's dead?"

"I know I wish I was!"

"It isn't that, then?"

"No; but I've got to meet somebody at two o'clock. I simply must," declared Evan, with an air of dull determination.

"Some of your people?" asked Jan, and supplied the negative himself before Evan could shake his head. "I thought not. Then do you mind telling me who it is?"

No answer from Evan but averted looks.

"Well, where is it that you've got to meet them?"

"Yardley Wood."

Jan was there in a flash; he was looking over the posts and rails at the besotted figure waving and beckoning