"Will a pebble-size do?" yelled Jane, excitedly.
"Yes! Yes!" answered the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. "You've seen stones in rings, haven't you? Aren't they pebble-size?"
The nurse stooped, picked up a small stone, and sent it spinning from the end of a thumb.
Faint with fear, Gwendolyn thrust a trembling hand into the patch-pocket and took hold of the lip-case. Then leaning against the little old gentleman, her yellow head half-concealed by the dusty flap of his torn coat, she waited.
CHAPTER X
What she first saw was a face!—straight ahead, at the top of a steep rise, where the wide road narrowed to a point. The face was a man's, and upon it the footlights beat so strongly that each feature was startlingly vivid. But it was not the fact that she saw only a face that set her knees to trembling weakly—nor the fact that the face was fearfully distorted; but because it was upside down!
She stared, feeling herself grow cold, her flesh creep. "Oh, I want to go home!" she gasped.
The face began to move nearer, slowly, inch by inch. And there sounded a hoarse outcry: "Hoo! hoo! Hoo! hoo!"
It was the little old gentleman who reassured her somewhat—by his even voice. "Ah!" said he with something of pride, yet as if to himself. "He realizes that the black eye is a beauty. And I shouldn't wonder if he isn't coming to match it!"