Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/218

 "Keep the change," bid Dads' dignified intonation.

"Sober!" thought Joan and glowed with gratefulness to Dads for keeping control of himself to-night. But it was like Dads to rise to an emergency when mamma, on the other hand, would collapse.

Dads stepped steadily up the walk and when he inserted his key in the door lock, it was the right key at once and he found the keyhole without scraping around it.

Since he had noticed that the room was dark and the window open, he entered noiselessly until she spoke to him, "Dads!"

"Did I wake you?" he asked.

"No. Close the window. Talk to me, Dads."

He fastened the sash, switched on the light, and she saw, as she had begun to feel in the dark, that Dads not only was wholly sober to-night, but that he had returned in a rare mood of his which reminded her always of his talk with her on her twelfth birthday.

"Do you not like the light?" he questioned as he faced her.

"Let's look out at the moonlight," she replied; so he turned the switch again. He laid down his hat and stick but he merely unbuttoned his overcoat, as he seated himself on a chair near her.

"You are worrying," he said.

"Some," she admitted, thrusting an arm from the covers, and he drew off a glove and clasped her hand.

"Over Ketlar?"

"Ket, of course, Dads."

"He will be acquitted," assured Dads, releasing her hand, but keeping it upon his knee and patting it gently.

"I think so."

"Then what do you think?" demanded Dads suddenly, poising his hand over hers and ceasing to pat her. "What