Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/116

104 pulling on his line to see whether he had a fish. The others seemed to be as diligently playing the fool, intent only on amusing the audience.

And the truth was that the whole four—being circus-trained and indifferent to "Rubes"—scarcely gave the audience a thought. Milly went through the motions of her act mechanically, watching Sutley and thinking of what he had said. In her pretense of awkwardness on horseback, she clung to Burls; but she might have been clinging to a dummy, for all the thought she gave him—until he asked flirtatiously: "What 's the grouch Pop 's got on?" Then she returned from absent-mindedness, focusing her eyes on him to answer; "You ought to know. You were speakin' to 'im last."

He, in his part, swayed and sprawled and almost fell from the horse—replying at the same time: "I was n't askin' him any fam'ly secrets."

They bumped along together in silence, slipping and clutching at each other in a burlesque of fear.

She said out of her thoughts: "'E 's gettin' so cross there 's no suitin' 'im."

He suggested: "You might 's well be married as livin' with him, eh?"

She had a feminine impatience for this sort of professional humor. She did not reply.

"Say, Milly," he joked, "now that you 're thinkin' about gettin' married—how about Hen there?"

It was said partly in jealousy because he had noticed her friendliness for Sutley.