Johnson Boller Proposes
The whole head of brown hair had come free in his hand, and from David's cranium, billow upon billow of red-gold glory floated down about the bathrobed shoulders.
David, in fine, with no warning at all, had turned into a decidedly pretty young woman!
Through Anthony's astounded brain, impressions pursued one another so rapidly, those first few seconds, that the room danced crazily. There were two or three Davids and oceans of reddish-gold hair; there were several pairs of somber, deep-blue eyes as well, whirling around and mocking him, regarding his quite steadily and all packed with new significance.
Yet in the tumult several details, which had rather puzzled Anthony Fry, grew painfully clear. Very fully now did he understand that delicacy of feature—the small, beardless chin and the fine, regular little nose, which he had ascribed to good blood somewhere in David's family. He understood also the slenderness of David's hands and the curious, high-pitched shrillness that had come into the voice once or twice in moments of excitement.
But these were minor, insignificant realizations; he understood them and passed them, forcing his brain to some sort of calm; and now, with only one David in the room and the furniture quite steady again, he stood face to face with what was really one of the most horrible facts of his whole life; a pretty young woman, of whose identity he was utterly ignorant, was in his guest chamber now, in pajamas and bathrobe—and she had been there all night!
Out of Anthony's limp fingers the wig dropped, landing on the floor with a soft thump. He sought to speak and found that words would not come as yet; he gripped at one of the little chairs and presently discovered that his weak knees had lowered him into it, so that he sat and still stared at David and——
"I wish you wouldn't kick that wig around," said his guest. "I only hired it for the night, you know."
The owner of Fry's Imperial Liniment pulled at the loose collar of his pajamas.
"You—er—you——" he said intelligently.