Page:Daskam Bacon--Whom the gods destroy.djvu/43



ILLARD'S landlady smiled sympathetically across the narrow breakfast-table. "I guess you've got to stay in this mornin', Mr. Willard," she said. "It's a good deal too raw and cold for you to be out around, paintin', to-day."

Willard nodded. "Quite right, Mrs. Storrs," he returned, and he smiled at his landlady's daughter, who sat opposite. But she did not smile at him. She continued her silent meal, looking for the most part at her plate, and replying to direct questions only by monosyllables.

She must be nineteen or twenty, he decided, but her slender, curveless figure might have been that of a girl several years younger. Her face was absolutely without character to the casual glance—pale, slightly freckled, lighted by grey-green, half-closed eyes, and framed in light brown hair. Her lips were thin, and her rare smile did not