"What is it? What's the row?"
"It's Father--he's got wind of something--Mother told me--he's going to
open my money-box when he comes home to-night. I didn't know he'd kept
count--just the sort of beastly thing he would do--and oh, Robert, when he
finds out I've been cramming him he'll kill me--he will, really----"
At another time Robert might have consoled him with the assurance that
even the beastliest sort of father might hesitate to risk his neck on such
slight provocation, but he himself was overwrought with three days of
peril, of desperate subterfuge and feverish alternations between joy and
anguish. Now, in the mysterious twilight, the most terrible, as the most
wonderful things seemed not merely possible but likely. It made it all
the more terrible that Rufus should have to endure so much because he had
taken a fancy to a silly kid who laughed like a hyena till you laughed
yourself, however much you hated her.
He held Cosgrave's sticky hand tight, and at that loyal understanding
pressure Cosgrave began to cry, shaking from head to foot, jerking out his
words between his chattering teeth.
"It's s-stupid to cry--I do w-wish I w-wasn't always c-crying about
everything--after all--he c-can't kill me more than once, can he? But
he's such a beast. He h-hates anyone else to h-have a good time and tell
lies. He's always so j-jolly glad to let into me or mother--and when he
finds out we've been stuffing him he--he goes mad--and preaches for days
and days.
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