Instinct told Dale that this nice young man
sympathized with him, as certainly as it told him that his judges were
unsympathetic.
He stood now in the deep bay window, as far as possible from the
table, pretending not to listen while straining every nerve to catch
the words that were being spoken over there. His blood was hurrying
thickly, his heart beat laboriously, his collar stuck clammily to his
perspiring neck. His sense of bodily fatigue was as great as if he had
run a mile race; and yet one might say that the interview had scarcely
begun. What would he be like before it was over? He summoned all his
courage in order to go through with it gamely.
... "You can't have this sort of thing." The words had reached him
distinctly--spoken by the one they called Sir John; and the one that
Sir John called "Colonel" said with equal distinctness, "Certainly
not."
Dale's heart beat more easily. As he hoped and believed, they must be
talking of the soldier. Then the heart-beats came heavy again. Were
they talking of him and not of the soldier? He caught a few other
broken phrases of enigmatic import--such as "storm in teacup,"
"trouble caused," "no complaints"--and then the voices were lowered,
and he heard no more of the conversation at the table.
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