Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/284

 little deeper between the powdered ear-lobe and the ineradicable little runway of freckles. "I don't wantta do anything that'll make yuh ashamed of me. That's why!"

Wilsnach smiled at her solemnity. He could afford to be indulgent. He had vindicated his discovery. His exotic little side-street restaurant had yielded them up a dinner that was irreproachable. Sadie had eaten her way through that dinner with the open and honest appetite of a healthy boy. Wilsnach himself had dined with the delight of a truant who had found the balm of freedom edged with the zest of adventure.

"But I want you to be happy," he maintained, smiling at her from that hazy headland of content which is bastioned on the seas of ventral appeal. Trouble, he realized, could not house for long in that resilient young heart of hers. It was only two days since the tragic taking-off of Shindler, but shocked as she may have been by that occurrence, she now seemed intent on forgetting it. As she sat smiling across the table at him she could even surrender her hand to his, with a child-like little gulp of contentment.

"Well, I'm so happy when I see yuh coppin'