Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/67

 pretty well ginned and he wanted to be sung to before going to bed. He found a woman singing in Los Angeles. She was singing "Home, Sweet Home." That was when Adele was shot, your own men say; some one in the building heard the shot just when that song finished in Los Angeles; and then Ket was here with me. Dads went to his room, after the second verse and Ket was at my door."

"Outside, you mean?" Calvin asked.

"Yes."

"It was shut?"

"Yes."

"Then how do you know he was there?"

"I opened the door, while the radio was still going. I saw him there. He grabbed me and kissed me."

She made a slight gesture, drawing together her shoulders as they would be pressed by arms about her and flinging back her head, as though at the forcing of hot, violent lips; and she so impressed the picture upon Calvin that she stirred in him a surprising twinge of offense at the image of her in Ketlar's arms.

"Then what did you do?" Calvin asked.

"When he let me go, I came back here and turned off the radio. It was just saying that the song was from Los Angeles."

Calvin gazed at her and thought, "That's just her story, of course. Ketlar wasn't at the door then." And he had a definite sensation of relief at thus being able to erase the offensive idea of her in Ketlar's embrace; then he realized that if she had not been so held by Ketlar at the place and at the moment described, of course she had been in his arms elsewhere.

"How else do you want to change your story now?" Calvin asked her, more coldly because of the hot twinge he had felt for her.