Before the dumb, abject misery in the young blue eyes that lifted so heavily to his, a grin like the painted grin on a sick clown's face shot suddenly across the father's mobile mouth.
"Oh I hope he was a nice boy!" he said quite abruptly. "Blonde or brunette?"
"Why—Why—Father!" stammered the girl. "I—I thought you would— 3 would kill me!"
"Kill you?" mumbled her father. More essentially at the moment he seemed concerned with an overturned bottle of ink that was splashing its sinister pool across his morning's work. "Kill you?" he repeated vaguely. Across the high, intervening barrier of books and catalogues he craned his neck suddenly with a certain sharp intentness.
"And is your shoulder broken, too?" he asked very gently.
"My shoulder?" quivered the girl.
"It sags so," murmured her father.
"It's my suit-case," said the girl. "My heavy suit-case."
"Why not put it down?" asked the man.
Across the young girl's fluctuant face a dozen new miseries flared hotly.