Page:Glitter (1926).pdf/48

 you going in, Jock? Oh, better go in! Oh, do go in? Poor girl has probably spent the day with her nose pressed to the window-pane"

Just at this moment the bungalow's door swung wide and Bradley Hathaway's figure was silhouetted, black against yellow. He bent to place a milk bottle on the porch, then straightened suddenly as Jock howled, "Hul-lo, Brad!"

"Hello yourself! Who is it, anyway?"

"Jock Hamill, and three of the better eggs."

"Jock—why, come in here this minute, you big bum! We've been wondering when you'd be along!"

"You see," said Bill, sotto voce. "Nobody's invited in but Jock. I do admire a husband with some idea of the fitness of things!"

Jock stopped the car and got out. "Shut up, Bill," he said good-naturedly, "and drive along down to the house. I'll be there soon—have to see Brad a minute"

They met on the porch and entered the bungalow arm in arm, both immensely glad of the reunion. Jock's regard for Bradley Hathaway was easily understandable when you looked well at him. He had force and strength. Strength of character, writ plain in his eyes and the line of his chin; strength of body. He was the type of man of whom no one in the world can make sport except just one woman. . ..

"Eunice!" he called from the hall. "Guess who's here? Jock Hamill!"

"Ooo—really?" A remote little cry of gladness. "Comin' in just a second, soon as I can throw a wrappah on." Eunice had clung persistently to her Tennessee accent through all these years in what she was pleased to call "the raucous No'th"; hence there were no concluding g's or r's in anything she said.