Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/344

 He'll wish he'd stuck in centuries. He'll pay in grands!. . . But at that I guess we got enough for a trip, eh? And more in the bank, you bet! And more coming. . . Huh! I couldn't stop it, 'less I locked the door. Watch 'em walk to me! . . ."

His hands, after smoothing and counting his money, returned to her, and she endured his embrace so dully that again he shook her, complaining: "What's the matter with you? Where's your pep, Jo?"

"I guess I'm tired, Ket," she evaded.

"Then wake up!"

"I guess—I guess, Ket, I've gone stale."

"Stale! You mean, on me!"

"Yes," she replied, in a whisper, toppling his vanity. He pushed her away into her corner where she sat huddled with head dropped.

Gradually a beat of rhythm began to stir and thrill her; it increased and approached, and she realized that she was hearing the "strike—strike" of a tire chain on the fender of a passing car; but by shutting her eyes she made it the measure of Elgar's great march as she had in the car with Calvin Clarke beside her when she had told him that Ket, if not like Mozart, would become like Elgar or Schelling and that he would go to a conservatory, like Sowerby.

She straightened and sat up, incited again to her dream.

"That's showing some of the old pep," Ket approved. "Come over here."

"No, Ket."

So he seized her, demanding, "Say, what's come over you?"

"Nothing," she replied, still evading; for did she know, yet, of herself? "I've not slept a lot the last nights."

"Haven't you, Kid? Of course you haven't," he said,