her eyes that which made me sit up. What the look
implied I was unable altogether to understand, but I could venture a
guess at it, and on the venture I spoke:

"He's the pride of their life, I've been told. Any parents would be
proud of such a son--that is, if they were the kind of parents a son
could be proud of. I'd like to see Tom. I used to be very fond of
him when he was a boy. He lived just back of us and he and Kitty
were great friends as children. I'm afraid he's forgotten me,
however."

"No, he hasn't--" Miss Swink stopped as abruptly as she began, but
the color that had crept into her face at mention of Tom Cressy's
name now crimsoned it, and again she turned her head away. In her
eyes, however, I had caught the gratitude flashed to me, and quickly
I decided I must see her alone, talk to her alone; and so absorbed
was I in wondering how I could do it that only vaguely did I hear
Mrs. Swink, who was telling me of various engagements already made,
of the difficulty of getting in what had to be gotten in between
being manicured and marcelled and massaged and chiropodized and
tailored and dress-makered, and had she not been so interested in the
telling she would have discovered I was not at all interested in the
hearing. She did not discover.

When for the third time I saw Miss Swink glance at the watch upon her
wrist, and then out of the window, I knew she was waiting for some
one to pass. It wasn't Harrie. There was no necessity for furtive
watching for Harrie to pass, The latter's plaint of sickness was
evidently not convincing to the girl. I looked at the clock on the
mantel. I had been in the room twenty-seven minutes, but I didn't
agree with Selwyn that Miss Swink was in love with his brother. Her
engagement to him was due, I imagined, not so much to her literalness
as to her mother's management. An unholy desire to demonstrate that
the latter was not of a scientific kind possessed me, and quickly my
mind worked.

CHAPTER XIX

With eyes apparently on Mrs. Swink, I missed no movement of her
daughter, and when presently I saw her put her elbow on the
window-sill and wipe her lips with her handkerchief, and then make
movement as if to brush something away, I got up, made effort to say
good-by unhurriedly to her mother, and went over to the girl. As I
held out my hand I glanced out of the window. Exactly opposite, and
looking up at it, was Tom Cressy, his handkerchief to his lips.