Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/17

 He laughed with satisfaction at his ability to stir her; and he caught her hand and held it.

"What you been doing to-night?" he amended his question.

"Working."

"Where?"

"Office."

"Oh; Hoberg kept you again. He come home with you?"

"No; I wouldn't let him; but he kept me awful late. I just got home a few minutes ago."

"Come on in," he bid, and then, feeling how she trembled, he asked, "What are you scared of me for?"

"I'm not."

"What's scaring you, then?"

"Nothing," she protested; for she would not tell him what she had seen in the flat by the lake.

He had no hint of it, she thought; then she wondered. It was Saturday night and he had left his orchestra early. Why had he?

"How did you happen to hop home, Ket?" she asked.

"Me?" said Ket. "I wanted to get to you."

"To me, Ket? Why?"

"I got somethin' good—somethin' wonderful, Jo. So I turned the gang over to Henny and come to show you," Ket replied, grandly. The gang was the orchestra which this boy of twenty-four years owned, managed and conducted. Henny was his assistant and much older than the manager. "I got to steppin' on a new trot," the boy went on, enthusiastically. "Jo, it's a riot. Got the moan of it 'bout ten o'clock when I was tramplin' on the Danube Blues and I blew it on the sax for the encore while Henny jazzed the old Blues. Honest, they wouldn't let me sit down."

He pulled her through the door which was the com-