Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/53

Rh She turned her head. He almost thought she smiled.

"But I can't have tramps sleeping here," she said. "It's not as if I was a reg'lar tramp," he said, warming to his part as he had often done on the stage in his A.D.C. days. "I'm a respectable working-man, mum, as 'as seen better days."

"Are you hungry?" she said. "I'll give you something to eat before you go if you'll come to the door in five minutes."

He could not refuse—but when she was gone into the house he could bolt. So he said—

"Now may the blessing! It's starving I am, mum, and on Christmas Eve!"

This time she did smile: it was beyond a doubt. He had always thought her smile charming. She turned at the door, and her glance followed the lantern's rays as they pierced the darkness where he crouched.

The moment he heard the house door shut, he sprang up, and lifted the fur coat gingerly to the wood-block. Flight, instant flight! Yet how could he present himself at New Romney with a fur coat and a face like a collier's? He had