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"It was not for you I was waiting," she said coldly. "N o?" teased Delcote. "You astonish me. For whom, then? Some incredible wight who, worse than late isn't going to show up at all?... Heaven sent, I consider myself.... How else could so little a girl have managed so big a turkey?" "There ... isn't any ... carving knife," whispered Flame.
"Why, no one special at all except just the Master of the House!" "What?" gasped Flame. "Earle Delcote," bowed the Stranger. With a little hand that trembled perfectly palpably Flame reached back to the arm of the big carved chair for support. "Why why, but Mr. Delcote is an old man," she gasped. "I'm almost sure he's an old man." The smile on Delcote's mouth spread suddenly to his eyes.
"It's just chock-full of dead things! Pressed flowers! And old plush bags! And pressed flowers! And and pressed flowers!" "Great Heavens!" groaned Delcote. "And I came here to forget 'dead things'!" "Your your Butler said you'd had misfortunes," murmured Flame. "Misfortunes?" rallied Delcote. "I should think I had!
Through the quavering fingers that he swept suddenly across his brow two very genuine tears glistened. With characteristic precipitousness Flame jumped to her feet. "Oh, darn Mr. Delcote!" she cried. "I'll feed your dogs, Christmas Day! It won't take a minute after my own dinner or before! I'll run like the wind! No one need ever know!"
The tears were glistening on her cheeks now instead of just in her eyes. A less observing man than Delcote might have thought the tears were really for the carving knife. "What? No carving knife?" he roared imperiously. "And the house guaranteed 'furnished'?" Very furiously he began to hunt all around the kitchen in the most impossible places. "Oh, it's furnished all right," quivered Flame.
In a single year I've lost health, money, most everything I own in the world except my man and my dogs!" "They're ... good dogs," testified Flame. "And the Doctor's sent me here for six months," persisted Delcote, "before he'll even hear of my plunging into things again!" "Six months is a a good long time," said Flame.
So if there's any fatalities come this Christmas Time, Barret', he says, 'or any undue gains in weight or losses in weight, I shall infer, Barret', he says, 'that you was absent without leave. ... It don't look like a very wholesome Christmas for me," sighed the old Butler. "Not either way. Not what you'd call wholesome." "But this Mr. Delcote?" puzzled Flame.
"Oh, you mean ... Bertrand?" flushed Flame. "Oh, truly, I didn't invite him! He just butted in ... same as you!" "Same as ... I?" stammered Delcote. "Well..." floundered Flame. "Well ... you know what I mean and ..." With peculiar intentness the Master of the House fixed his eyes on the knotted white handkerchief which Flame had thrown across the corner of her chair.
An empty chair facing the Girl. "If this is madness," thought Delcote quite precipitously, "I am at least the Master of the Asylum!" In another instant, with a prodigious stride he had slipped into the vacant seat. "... So sorry to have kept you waiting," he murmured.
But me I mixes dog bread and milk dog bread and milk till I can't see nothing think nothing but mush. And him with cider in his cellar!... It ain't as though Mr. Delcote ever came himself to prove anything," he argued. "Not he! Not Christmas Time! It's travelling he is.... He's had ... misfortunes," he confided darkly. "He travels for 'em same as some folks travels for their healths.
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