Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/199

 Kirke's face was transfigured by a delighted grin to see her in a rage. He advanced a step towards her, but she snatched up the long black-handled knife with which she had cut the cheese. Her eyes were two shining dark slits. She said:

"If I ran this into you, they'd hang me, wouldn't they? And then it 'ud be all over."

"Come now, come now," said Kirke soothingly. "You're not in airnest, and I was only in fun. . . . We must make haste along to Beemer's now, for it's almost dinner time. Put down that knife, my lass."

She laid it down, but looked at him threateningly still, out of the sides of her eyes.

"Dear, oh dear," commented Kirke jauntily. "I never thought to stage a melodrama behind the wee shop." He took off his bowler hat and made her a little stiff bow. "The carriage is waiting, your ladyship, daughter of Ivan, the acrobat."

The British American Hotel, commonly called Beemer's, was a low-roofed, dark, musty place, a weather-beaten frame building, with a leaky roof, a sagging verandah, and small-paned windows. But there was something home-like about it, after all. There were men—the saddler, the auctioneer, and a down-at-heel lawyer—who had lived there for years. Once one got used to the smells and the disorder and the children that sprawled over the verandah in summer and the halls in winter, one found that the cooking was good; the beds, though never properly made, were fairly comfortable; and the whisky, Canadian brands, cheaper than at The Duke.

Mrs. Beemer, a black-browed, light-eyed heavy woman, did the cooking, except for one week in the year, when she had her annual baby. During that week the maids