Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/296

 compassion and wonder in his wife's eyes: indeed, she could hardly have failed to suspect his mind was affected; but, loving him, she had tried to shield him, as is the way of women I found the whole matter droll and rather heart-breaking. But the Wardens of Earth were uncompromised, so far as I could prove. Whatever windows had or had not been unbarred, there remained no proof

So I shook my head. "Why, no," said I, with at worst a verbal adhesion to veracity. "I, for one, do not know what the design means. Still, you have never had this deciphered," I added, gently. "Suppose—suppose there had been some mistake, Mr. Kennaston—that there was nothing miraculous about the sigil, after all—?"

I cannot tell you of his expression; but it caused me for the moment to feel disconcertingly little and obtuse.

"Now, how can you say that, I wonder!" he marveled—and then, of course, he fidgeted, and crossed his legs the other way—"when I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the