Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/48



If Harold had entered his father's house cringing, it cannot be said that he left it with his head high. To most boys the promise of a year's freedom under such exceptional circumstances would have opened up a prospect of unbounded bliss, the security of an irresponsible existence. But Harold was not like most boys. He had entertained, it seems probable, some vague expectation that he would be invited to remain.

It was, therefore, a very dazed young man who fairly tottered down the stairs and almost jumped when the servant emerged from the darkness to present him with his hat and usher him through the open doorway. Out in the bright June glare of Eighty-second Street he thought for a moment that he was going to be sick, but he managed to summon enough force to hail a passing taxi-cab, and to give the address of his new home.

Sinking well back into the seat of the cab, he removed his hat and wiped the perspiration from his temples. Freed from the cloak and suit business by this extraordinary father, so much more extraordinary even than he had suspected, Harold seemed committed to a new life which was still more out