"I beg your pardon, but the Pomeranian is mine," affirmed Claude Kennilworth's un-mistakable voice with what seemed like quite unnecessary hauteur.
"What the deuce is the matter with everybody?" whispered my Husband.
With a jerk and a bump the bus grazed a big boulder and landed us wheezily at our own front door.
As expeditiously as possible my Husband snatched up the lantern that gleamed from the doorstep and brandishing it on high, challenged the shadowy occupants of the bus to disembark and proclaim themselves.
Ann Woltor stepped down first. As vague as the shadows she merged from her black-garbed figure faded un-outlined into the shadow of the porch. For an instant only the uplifted lantern flashed across her strange stark face—and then went crashing down into a shiver of glass on the gravelly path at my Husband's feet. "Ann—Stoltor!" I heard him gasp. My Husband is not usually a fumbler either with hand or tongue. In the brightening flare of the flash-light that some one thrust into his hands his face showed frankly rattled. "Ann Woltor!" I prompted him hastily. For the infinitesimal fraction of a second our eyes met. I hope my smile was as quick. "What is the matter with everybody?" I said.
With extravagant exuberance my Husband jumped to help the rest of our guests alight. "Hi, there, Everybody!" he greeted each new face in turn as it emerged somewhat hump-shouldered and vague through the door of the bus into the flare of his lantern light.
Poor Rollins, of course, tumbled out.
Fastidiously, George Keets illustrated how a perfect exit from a bus should be made,—suitcase, hat-box, English ulster, everything a model of its kind. Even the constraint of his face, absolutely perfect.
With the Pomeranian clutched rather drastically under one arm, Claude Kennilworth followed Keets. All the time, of course, you knew that it was the Pomeranian who was growling, but from the frowning irritability of young Kennilworth's eyes one might almost have concluded that the boy was a ventriloquist and the Pom a puppet instead of a puppy. "Her name is 'Pet'," he announced somewhat succinctly to my Husband. "And she sleeps in no—kennel!"
A trifle paler than I had expected, but inexpressively young, lovely, palpitant, and altogether adorable, the May Girl sprang into my vision—and my arms. Her heart was beating like a wild bird's.