Look here, Vince: tell Mr Deane to give you some lessons in natural history, and then you'll learn that you are not an ostrich, but a boy." The next minute Vince was in the dark, but not before Mrs Burnet had managed to bend down and kiss him, accompanying it with one of those tender good-nights which he never forgot to the very last.
But Vince felt hot and angry with what had passed.
"I wish father hadn't hit me," he muttered.

"He never did before.

I don't like it; and he seemed so cross.

I wonder whether he did feel angry." Vince lay for some minutes puzzling his not quite clear brain as to whether his father was angry or pretending.

There was the dull murmur of voices from the next room, as if a conversation were going on, but he could not tell whether his mother was taking his part or no.