Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/52

40 with that she assumed an attitude of silent self-suppression that was comical—as well as tragic.

"It only took us twenty minutes to get down to Fourteenth Street from a Hundred and Third," Larry told her.

"Did it," she said shortly.

"Lots o' flats to rent up there."

She said nothing.

"Better air, too."

With one hand supporting an elbow, she fingered her lips as if she were fingering a padlock on them. Miss McCarty was very reposedly looking aside out of the window. Larry tried to make talk.

The end of it came when the girl, having carried on five minutes' futile conversation with him—about flats, comparative rents and the possible construction of more subways—rose placidly to say good-night; and Mrs. Regan awoke, too late, to the inhospitality of her behavior.

"Yuh 're never goin' so soon!" she cried. "Wait a bit. Have a cup o' tea now." The girl refused firmly, but Mrs. Regan hurried out to the kitchen to put on the kettle and open the cake box. She heard Larry call out something which she did not understand. And when she returned with her pewter cake-basket and her tray of cups, the room was empty.

They had gone.

She went back to the kitchen, thumped the cake into the box, banged the basket down on the table, and snatched the kettle from the stove. "There!" she said.