"Kenny," he demanded with asperity, "where have you been?"
Kenny glanced at the faded books stacked upon the bookshelves; and with the cabin uppermost in his mind he swung back dangerously to the hostile mood of the night before. Adam Craig was a miser, cruel and selfish. He had driven Joan and Donald to a refuge in the pines.
"I said," repeated Adam in a louder voice, "where have you been?"
"You lie!" said Adam. "It's your way of telling me to mind my own business."
"Very well, then," said Kenny evenly, making use of his one weapon of composure, "let's concede that I've been sulking."
Infuriated, Adam brought his fist down upon the arm of his wheel-chair and, coughing, propelled himself up and down the room.
Kenny walked away to the window, sick with remorse. For the old man had coughed himself into gasping quiet. What could he do?
A wayward Irish tune, ludicrously fitting, danced into his head and made him smile.
"What shall I do with this silly old man?" whistled Kenny softly at the window.
"What's that?" demanded Adam suspiciously.
The insolence in his voice struck fire again. Kenny remembered his notebook and the hour of accounting. Never again would the forces Adam had revived sink into the quietude of his first days here at the farm.
"It's a song," said Kenny innocently, "about a wild flower. And it was very wild. It had thorns."
"I think you lie," said Adam, glaring. "But as I have no womanish repertoire of songs to prove it, you can whistle it all you want and be damned to you."
Kenny at the window availed himself of the privilege.
"What's the name of it?" snapped Adam after a while, ruffled by his guest's persistence.
"'What shall I do with this silly old man?'" explained Kenny with a grin.
"You impudent liar!" cried the old man in a high, angry voice. "Do you ever tell the truth?"
"Almost never," said Kenny. "Do you?" And he went on with his whistling.
"Well, then," he said, "it's time you began. You're young enough, God knows. But it's not a youth of years. It's a superficial youth of spirit. And you're old enough to tell the truth."
Kenny wheeled. Adam's careless dart had struck deep and sharp and it rankled.
"Very well, Adam," he said, "I'll practice on you."
Truth! Truth! he reflected passionately at the window. Was the world mad about it? And what was the matter with himself? Why did the romantic freaks of his fancy always fill him now with vague worry?