Silence fills the room as every head turns toward the youth. The moment he felt their gazes falling upon him, in that split second of dreadful self-awareness, there was a sort of cringing, barely perceptible, his head turning from them toward anything else in particular, but it was just a moment, and hardly even that. Rallying, rallying almost before his retreat, the youth stood up tall, cocking his head a little, an imitation, I recognized, of our stern, old Mr. P. The things we learn are so rarely the subjects taught.
“Damned nonsense,” he repeated. No more the offhanded comment; he cast away the slipping mask. And then he added, “Don’t be an ass.”
Angered, his interlocutor turning red, spluttering answered, and then, finally, words:
“Oh, I suppose there are regressives.”
The youth set down his drink.
“To turn back is often the fastest way home,” and so saying, he left, them and their party, never to be invited again.
Tale Told 