A moment or two later she was whistling softly as she hung her light coat over a wooden triangle in her closet, and her musing now was quainter than the experience that led to it; for what she thought was this, “I certainly am a queer girl!” She took a little pride in so much originality, believing herself probably the only person in the world to have such thoughts as had been hers since she entered the room, and the first to be disturbed by a strange presence in the mirror. In fact, the effect of the tiny episode became apparent in that look of preoccupied complacency to be seen for a time upon any girl who has found reason to suspect that she is a being without counterpart.
This slight glow, still faintly radiant, was observed across the dinner-table by Walter, but he misinterpreted it. “What YOU lookin' so self-satisfied about?” he inquired, and added in his knowing way, “I saw you, all right, cutie!”
“Where'd you see me?”
“Down-town.”
“This afternoon, you mean, Walter?”
“Yes, 'this afternoon, I mean, Walter,'” he returned, burlesquing her voice at least happily enough to please himself; for he laughed applausively. “Oh, you never saw me! I passed you close enough to pull a tooth, but you were awful busy. I never did see anybody as busy as you get, Alice, when you're towin' a barge. My, but you keep your hands goin'! Looked like the air was full of 'em! That's why I'm onto why you look so tickled this evening; I saw you with that big fish.”
Mrs. Adams laughed benevolently; she was not displeased with this rallying. “Well, what of it, Walter?” she asked. “If you happen to see your sister on the street when some nice young man is being attentive to her——”
Walter barked and then cackled. “Whoa, Sal!” he said. “You got the parts mixed. It's little Alice that was 'being attentive.' I know the big fish she was attentive to, all right, too.”
“Yes,” his sister retorted, quietly. “I should think you might have recognized him, Walter.”
Walter looked annoyed. “Still harpin' on THAT!” he complained. “The kind of women I like, if they get sore they just hit you somewhere on the face and then they're through. By the way, I heard this Russell was supposed to be your dear, old, sweet friend Mildred's steady. What you doin' walkin' as close to him as all that?”