Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/104

 "Did you ever know that floors talk in the night?" she asked. She possessed the queerest fancies.

"What do they say?" He glanced anxiously at the clock.

"There's a board over there, just this side of the curtains, that is always yawning and saying, 'Oh, dear!' There's another in the middle hall that says, 'Look sharp!' And I always walk around it. There's the funniest old grumbler in my room. I can't get it to say anything; it just mumbles and grumbles. The one in your room says, 'Lonesome! Lonesome!' And the store-room has one that says, 'Hark!' so sharply that I always stop and listen. I suppose it's because I'm not used to wooden floors."

"And because I don't believe you're a real human being at all, only just a fairy."

"Well, perhaps." She rose and faced him suddenly. "Am I different? I mean, am I different from your friends? Do I do things I oughtn't? Why did you want to go back?"

"I didn't. I only felt I ought to."

She wrinkled her forehead, trying to decipher this. "I speak English like anybody