Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/304

 could have heard him! There was a silence out of which I said: "Did you ask her to warm your slippers?"

He stared at me, then he reached out his hands across the table and caught hold of mine in such a strong grip that it hurt. "You've seen her," he said, "you've seen her?"

Then I remembered. "I can't say any more. You see—I've promised"

"That you wouldn't tell me?"

"Yes."

He threw back his head and laughed. "If she's in this part of the country, I'll find her." And I knew that he would. He was the kind of man you felt wouldn't know there were obstacles in the way when he went after the thing he wanted.

I made him stay to supper. It was a drizzly cold night and he looked very tired.

"Jove," he said, "you're comfortable here, with your fire and your pussy-cat, and your teakettle on the hearth! This is the sort of thing I like"

"You wouldn't like living over a grocery store," I told him.

"Why not?"

"Oh, nobody around here ever has, and they are all descended from signers of the Declaration of Independence and back of that from William the Conqueror, and they stick their noses in the air." 298