If Flame had never in her life admired the Lay Reader she certainly would have admired him now for the sheer cold-blooded foresight which had presaged the inevitable reaction of the dogs upon the mush and the mush upon the dogs. With a single sniff at his heels, a prod of paws in his stomach, the onslaught swerved—and passed. Guzzlingly from four separate corners of the room issued sounds of joy and fulfillment.
With an impulse quite surprising even to herself Flame thrust both hands into the Lay Reader's clasp.
"You are nice, aren't you?" she quickened. In an instant of weakness one hand crept up to the blinding bandage, and recovered its honor as instantly. "Oh, I do wish I could see you," sighed Flame. "You're so good-looking! Even Mother thinks you're so good-looking!... Though she does get awfully worked up, of course, about your 'amorous eyes'!"
"Does your Mother think I've got ... 'amorous eyes'?" asked the Lay Reader a bit tersely. Behind his spectacles as he spoke the orbs in question softened and glowed like some rare exotic bloom under glass. "Does your Mother ... think I've got amorous eyes?"
"Oh, yes!" said Flame.
"And your Father?" drawled the Lay Reader.
"Why, Father says of course you've got 'amorous eyes'!" confided Flame with the faintest possible tinge of surprise at even being asked such a question. "That's the funny thing about Mother and Father," chuckled Flame. "They're always saying the same thing and meaning something entirely different by it. Why, when Mother says with her mouth all pursed up, 'I have every reason to believe that Mr. Lorello is engaged to the daughter of the Rector in his former Parish,' Father just puts back his head and howls, and says, 'Why, of course, Mr. Lorello is engaged to the daughter of the Rector in his former Parish! All Lay Readers...."
In the sudden hush that ensued a faint sense of uneasiness flickered through Flame's shoulders.
"Is it you that have hushed? Or the dogs?" she asked.
"The dogs," said the Lay Reader.