They were interrupted by voices, and turning flushed and candid faces
of animation towards the path, beheld Aunt Victoria, wonderful and
queen-like in a white dress, a parasol, like a great rose, over her
stately blond head, attended by Sylvia adoring; Mrs. Marshall quiet
and observant; Mr. Rollins, the tutor, thin, agitated, and unhappily
responsible; and Professor Marshall smiling delightedly at the
children.
"Why, Arnold _Smith_!" cried his tutor, too much overcome by the
situation to express himself more forcibly than by a repetition of the
boy's name. "Why, _Arnold_! Come here!"
The cloud descended upon the boy's face. "I _will_ not!" he said
insolently.
"But we were just _looking_ for you to start back to the hotel,"
argued Mr. Rollins.
"I don't care if you were!" said the boy in a sullen accent.
Sylvia and Judith looked on in amazement at this scene of
insubordination, as new to them as all the rest of the boy's actions.
He was standing still now, submitting in a gloomy silence to the
various comments on his appearance, which was incredibly different
from that with which he had started on his travels. The starch
remaining in a few places in his suit, now partly dried in the
hot sun, caused the linen to stand out grotesquely in peaks and
mud-streaked humps, his hair, still wet, hung in wisps about his very
dirty face, his bare, red feet and legs protruded from shapeless
knickerbockers.
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