BLANCHE
"I thought he was in the regular spare room. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I haven't had a chance to. I didn't know you were back. There, I hope you haven't waked him up!"
"I hope I have. What is he like?"
Mrs. Rader's reply was inaudible.
"Oh, mother, I don't believe it! Is he good looking?"
"Sh-h-h!"
Carron sat up and smiled. It was like being awakened by a bird singing—it was better, for a bird would have cared not a feather about a man's looks. The bright mettlesome voice touched pleasantly on his nerves. "The precocious thing," he thought. "How old is she?"
Tussling with the dog on the floor he had put her age at thirteen, but her last sentences made him clap on three years more. "I wonder why I didn't see her last night at supper," he thought, as the voices and footsteps moved away along the hall. "I wonder—" he mused longer, and seemed less pleased with his next reflection. "I wonder how many of them there are around the place."
This thought had been summoned by the memory of last night, and the apparition of an arm thrust
upon him out of darkness. That had not been the
57
