"Hush your mouth!" said Jaffrey Bretton.
"But, Old-Dad," shivered Daphne, "what about the—the man?"
"Men can look after themselves!" frowned her father, "and if they can't, maybe they'll get another chance, who knows? But a dog, poor little lover. All that dumb quivering miracle of love, 88 trust, shrewdness, sinew, silk. If he doesn't get the chance to live out the measure of even his stingy little day——"
"Yes, but Old-Dad," reasoned Daphne, "it was Creep-Mouse's own idea wasn't it—this jumping off to chase the cat?"
"Hush your mouth!" said Jaffrey Bretton. To cover the very real emotion that hid behind the irritability he began at once with the stub of a pencil and the back of an envelope to compose a telegram for the stranger.
"Thanks," he wrote. "Please communicate any news to J. Bretton, Hotel———"
Then quite abruptly he jumped up and started after the porter. "Why, what an idiot I am!" he called back from the door way. "We don't even know the chap's name!"
From under lashes that seemed extraordinarily heavy to lift Daphne glanced up a bit askance at her father.
"His name is Sheridan Kaire," she said.
Swinging sharply round in his tracks her father stood eyeing her with frank astonishment.