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Jack and Jill, and not for some hours had he been at the farmhouse. In the doorway now he stopped short; then instinctively he stepped back into the shadow. In the kitchen a kerosene light was burning. It showed Mrs. Holly crying at the table, and Mr. Holly, white-faced and stern-lipped, staring at nothing. Then Mrs. Holly raised her face, drawn and tear-stained, and asked a trembling question.
Suddenly, over Harriet swept the breath of roses coming into an open breakfast room and she saw a stern-lipped man lift, enfold a child-woman to him for a moment, and as fiercely put her from him and go out. Harriet, breathing quickly, put her brother's picture back, and going to the bed, lifted the bar and drew the sheet again over the child. Then she stood looking down.
Tintypes, portraying stiffly held hands and staring eyes, ghostly reproductions of daguerreotypes of stern-lipped men and women, in old-time stock and kerchief; photographs of stilted family groups after the "he-is-mine- and-I-am-his" variety; snap-shots of adorable babies with blurred thumbs and noses never had Mr. John Smith seen their like before. Politely he listened.
After a time he slipped into the house and came out with his violin. At the first long-drawn note of sweetness, Simeon Holly opened his eyes and sat up, stern-lipped. But his wife laid a timid hand on his arm. "Don't say anything, please," she entreated softly. "Let him play, just for to-night. He's lonesome poor little fellow."
Wherefore Casey Ryan continued his ride down town in a dark car that wears a clamoring bell the size of a breakfast plate under the driver's foot, and a dark red L. A. Police Patrol sign painted on the sides. Two uniformed, stern-lipped cops rode with him and didn't seem to care if Casey's nose WAS bleeding all over his vest.
"Please tell me all over again now much you love me." But no answering hands met hers. Instead, he drew away from her and faced her, stern-lipped. "I must make you understand," he said. "You don't know what it is that you are asking. I've made shipwreck of my life, and I must pay the penalty. But, by God, I'm not going to let you pay it, too! And if you married me, you would have to pay.
As I recall it in late years, I often wonder how my father could have mistaken the lying, rancorous woman of Con Darton's description for this stern-lipped creature, who had gone by wordlessly, shutting the door gently behind her, a door that she was never to re-open. I turned to find myself alone in the room. Mr. Darton had disappeared as unexpectedly but more quietly than he had entered.
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