Page:Thunder on the Left (1925).djvu/31

 Bunny pressed her warm lips against a wet petal of nostril.

"Martin doesn't mind," she whispered. "He hates presents."

Joyce could feel powerful fingers buttoning the cool gap between her shoulders. When that was done she would be turned round and asked what was the matter.

"Perhaps she has a pain," boomed a masculine vibration. "These parties always upset them. Worst thing for children."

Joyce could smell a whiff of cigar and see large feet in white canvas shoes approaching. Best to face it now before worse happens. She turned desperately, hampered by Bunny's embrace, almost throttling her in an excess of affection. Breaking away she ran across the room, where Martin and the boys were averting their eyes from the humiliation of the would-be spy. She thrust into his hand a tiny package, damp now.

"It was so small," she said.

A moment of appalling silence hung over the trembling pair. Martin could feel it coming, the words "What do you say, Martin?" seemed forming and rolling up over his head like opal banks of summer storm. Yet he could not have said a