Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/105

 else, but sometimes I don't understand. Santa Maria! There goes the bell!"

"It's Burlingham probably, come after us." And Bob would doubtless take Jimmie Armitage's head off for this night's work.

"All right. But wasn't it fun!"

"Hello!" said Burlingham as they opened the door. "Thought you'd be here. Jilli has just dropped in to play the violin for us. He's come straight from his concert. Mighty fine of him. He charges a thousand a night for those who consider him a fad of the hour and gives away his genius to those he knows love music. Come along."

"A violin?" Doris threw her cloak over her shoulders. "Isn't it wonderful! Floors that talk and little red-brown boxes with singing souls!"

Armitage's anxiety grew. He knew Bob's voice of old, and Bob was deeply angry about something; and Armitage suspected readily enough what this something was. Hang the world with its right-and-left angles, its fussy old hedges and barricades!

"Smoke a cigar with me when they all go," whispered Burlingham in the vestibule of his own house.