Page:The Yellow Book - 02.djvu/269

Rh She glanced furtively at him, but his face was quite unmoved. Evidently he had not noticed it, and she smiled faintly again.

"Oh, Kathie, I knew there was something I'd forgotten to tell you, my dear; there's a man coming down here. I don't know whether"

She looked up sharply. "A man coming here? What for?" she interrupted breathlessly.

"Sent to help me about this oil-boring business, my dear."

He had lighted his pipe, and was smoking placidly, taking long whiffs between his words.

"Well?" impatiently questioned his wife, fixing her bright eyes on his face.

"Well—that's all, my dear."

She checked an exclamation. "But don't you know anything about him—his name? where he comes from? what he is like?" She was leaning forward against the table, her needle with a long end of yellow silk drawn halfway through her work, held in her upraised hand, her whole attitude one of quivering excitement and expectancy.

The man took his pipe from his mouth deliberately, with a look of slow wonder.

"Why Kathie, you seem quite anxious. I didn't know you'd be so interested, my dear. Weil,"—another long pull at his pipe—"his name's Brook—Brookfield, I think." He paused again. "This pipe don't draw well a bit; there's something wrong with it, I shouldn't wonder," he added, taking it out and examining the bowl as though struck with the brilliance of the idea.

The woman opposite put down her work and clenched her hands under the table.

"Go on, John," she said presently in a tense vibrating voice—"his name is Brookfield. Well, where does he come from?" Rh