Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/118

THE IVORY TOWER More than ever at this his uncle's look might have covered him. "Anything round here—no! That's it, that's it," the old man blandly repeated. That's just the way—I mean the way I hoped. She knows you don't know—and doesn't want you to either. But put down your chair," he said; and then after, when Gray, instantly and delicately complying, had placed the precious article with every precaution back where it had stood: "Sit down here on the bed. There's margin."

"Yes," smiled Gray, doing with all consideration as he was told, "you don't seem anywhere very much à l'étroit."

"I presume," his uncle returned, "you know French thoroughly."

Gray confessed to the complication. "Of course when one has heard it almost from the cradle!"

"And the other tongues too?"

He seemed to wonder if, for his advantage, he mightn't deny them. "Oh a couple of others. In the countries there they come easy."

"Well, they wouldn't have come easy here—and I guess nothing else would; I mean of the things we principally grow. And I won't have you tell me," Mr. Betterman said, "that if you had taken that old chance they might have done so. We don't know anything about it, and at any rate it would have spoiled you. I mean for what you are."

"Oh," returned Gray, on the bed, but pressing lightly, "oh what I 'am'!" 104