The man stirred restlessly and pondered. After a long pause he adopted new tactics. With a searching study of her face to note the slightest change, he enumerated:
“Was it Cyril, then? Will? Aunt Hannah? Kate? It couldn't have been Pete, or Dong Ling!”
Billy still smiled inscrutably. At no name had Bertram detected so much as the flicker of an eyelid; and with a glance half-admiring, half-chagrined, he fell back into his chair.
“I'll give it up. You've won,” he acknowledged. “But, Billy,”—his manner changed suddenly—“I wonder if you know just what a hole you left in the Strata when you went away.”
“But I couldn't have—in the whole Strata,” objected Billy. “I occupied only one stratum, and a stratum doesn't go up and down, you know, only across; and mine was the second floor.”
Bertram gave a slow shake of his head.
“I know; but yours was a freak formation,” he maintained gravely. “It DID go up and down. Honestly, Billy, we did care—lots. Will and I were inconsolable, and even Cyril played dirges for a week.”
“Did he?” gurgled Billy, with sudden joyousness. “I'm so glad!”
“Thank you,” murmured Bertram, disapprovingly. “We hadn't considered it a subject for exultation.”
“What? Oh, I didn't mean that! That is—” she stopped helplessly.