Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/65

 Not a thing in the place is paid for or ever will be or ever was meant to be."

He glanced about the big, well-furnished room, noticing a girl's blouse and an undergarment of salmon-colored silk upon a chair near the couch which had been converted into a bed. Tan silk stockings lay upon the chair and a pair of small, pointed shoes stood below it. He looked away from these, and then they drew his glance again.

"They're paid for," the girl told him, bluntly. "I wear 'em. I paid for them."

Calvin flushed slightly and inquired. "What do you want to show me here?"

"The radio. It's a good set, you see. It cost—I mean the bill for it must be about three hundred dollars. It's not a necessary sort of thing. It made me almost crazy when I came home and found it here the first time. My father'd got it; it's the kind of thing he likes to get. But it'll save Ket's life, Mr. Clarke, if you'll just believe the truth. I'll tell you it—I'll tell you all of it, I say.

"We'd been downstairs in his room—Ket—Fred Ketlar and me. We'd had a drink, as they've told you. He was playing to me music he'd written. He came home early to-night to play it tome. After he'd played it, he wanted me to stay down there with him; but I came up here.

"He followed me and tried to get me to go downstairs again. Mamma, she was asleep in her room. My father hadn't come in yet. I was in this closet, putting away my hat and laughing at Ket for something he said, when he made a rush for me so I pulled over the door on him and he cut his head on the edge. Here.

"He went in there and washed up; and then he came out and played with the radio. He got Fort Worth or Kansas City, I don't know which, but some jazz came in and he cut it off. Then he left here. Now I'm telling