"Every ... kind," mused her Father. "He doesn't even deny being in the house," continued her Mother, "being in my closet, ... being caught with a—a—"
"With a silver carving knife and fork in his hand," intercepted the Lay Reader hastily.
"Yet all the time he persists," frowned Flame's Mother, "that there is some one in the world who can give a perfectly good explanation if only,—he won't even say 'he or she' but 'it', if only 'it' would."
Something in the stricken expression of her daughter's face brought a sudden flicker of suspicion to the Mother's eyes.
"You don't know anything about this, do you, Flame?" she demanded. "Is it remotely possible that after your promise to me,—your sacred promise to me—?" The whole structure of the home,—of mutual confidence,—of all the Future itself, crackled and toppled in her voice.
To the Lay Reader's face, and right through the Lay Reader's face, to the face of the Master of the House, Flame's glance went homing with an unaccountable impulse.
With one elbow leaning casually on the mantle-piece, his narrowed eyes faintly inscrutable, faintly smiling, it seemed suddenly to the young Master of the House that he had been waiting all his discouraged years for just that glance. His heart gave the queerest jump.
Flame's face turned suddenly very pink.
Like a person in a dream, she turned back to her Mother. There was a smile on her face, but even the smile was the smile of a dreaming person.
"No—Mother," she said, "I haven't seen Bertrand ... to-day."