"Keep away from her--hear me?"

"Yes, sir," said Dickie meekly.

After his father had gone out, Dickie sat for an instant with his head
on one side, listening intently. Then he got up, limped quietly and
quickly on his bare feet out into the hall, and locked the linen-room
door on the outside.

"Amelia's clean forgot to lock it," he said aloud. "Ain't she careless,
though, this morning!"

He went back. There was certainly a sound now behind the partition, a
sound of hard breathing that could no longer be controlled.

"I'll hand the key over to Mary," soliloquized Dickie in the hollow and
unnatural voice of stage confidences. "She'll be goin' in for the towels
about noon."

Then he fell on his bed and smothered a fit of chuckling.

Suddenly the mirth died out of him. He lay still, conscious of a pain in
his head and in his ankle and somewhere else--an indeterminate spot deep
in his being. He had been forbidden to see the girl who ran away out into
the night to look at the stars, the girl who had not laughed at his
attempt to describe the white ecstasy of the winter moon. He had
frightened her--disgusted her. He must have been more drunk than he
imagined. It _was_ disgusting--and so hopeless. Perhaps it would be
better to leave Millings.