He bowed his head and did not lift it.

"Do you understand?" she asked.

"I understand," he answered, quietly.

She looked at him long, and then, suddenly, her hand to her heart, gave a
little, pitying, tender cry and moved toward him. At this he raised his
head and smiled sadly. "No; don't you mind," he said. "It's all right. I
was such a cad the other time I needed to be told; I was so entirely silly
about it, I couldn't face the others to tell them good-night, and I left
you out there to go in to them alone. I didn't realize, for my manners
were all gone. I'd lived in a kind of stupor, I think, for a long time;
then being with you was like a dream, and the sudden waking was too much
for me. I've been ashamed often, since, in thinking of it--and I was well
punished for not taking you in. I thought only of myself, and I behaved
like a whining, unbalanced boy. But I had whined from the moment I met
you, because I was sickly with egoism and loneliness and self-pity. I'm
keeping you from the dancing. Won't you let me take you back to the
house?"

A commanding and querulous contralto voice was heard behind them, and a
dim, majestic figure appeared under the Japanese lantern.

"Helen?"

The girl turned quickly. "Yes, mamma."

"May I ask you to return to the club-house for supper with me? Your father
has been very much worried about you. We have all been looking for you."