Page:Son of the wind.djvu/91

RV 79 ron said, very much amused by the play, "but unfortuately I have lost nothing of the kind."

She seemed incredulous. "But you" she began, and Carron was sure she was about to say, "You recognized it"—which was true indeed.

He shook his head. "It isn't mine! Couldn't some one on the stage have lost it—or some one else in this part of the country? You don't happen to know," he said, turning to the man on the road, "of any one around here who has lost such a thing?"

There was a click in the fellow's throat. He seemed to draw breath with a great effort. "It's mine!"

Blanche Rader gave him the full benefit of her amazement. "Why, you—" She started again, "Why, Bert—"

"It's mine; I lost it yesterday!" He drew a trembling hand across his forehead, suddenly damp.

She took him all in, his worn flannel shirt, patched trousers stuck into old boots that needed patching, his whole appearance of a rather reckless poverty; she glanced at Carron. His eye refuted her implication. Its steady insistence expected a certain action from her as it had from the man on the road. She was perplexed, and he thought a little chagrined that her amusing supposition had taken this unexpected