"What I should like to know, Alfred, is--what's come to you?" she
commenced indignantly. "Not a word have you spoken all the evening--you
that there's no holding generally with your chaff and jokes. What Mr.
and Mrs. Johnson must have thought of you, I can't imagine, standing
there like a stick when they stopped to be civil for a few minutes, and
behaving as though you never even heard their asking us to go in and
have a bite of supper. What have we done, eh, little Alf and me? You
look at us as though we had turned into ogres. Out with it, my man.
What's wrong?"
"I am not--"
Burton stopped short. The lie of ill-health stuck in his throat. He
thirsted to tell the truth, but a new and gentle kindliness kept him
speechless. Ellen was beginning to get a little frightened.
"What is it that's come to you, Alfred?" she again demanded. "Have you
lost your tongue or your wits or what?"
"I do not know," he answered truthfully enough. His manner was so
entirely non-provocative that her resentment for a moment dropped.
"What's changed you since yesterday?" she persisted. "What is it that
you don't like about us, anyway? What do you want us to do?"
Burton sighed. He would have given a great deal to have been able to
prevaricate, but he could not.
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