“And for Pete’s sake, come as early as you can,” he ended. “Come before it gets dark, will you? I—” He arose. “Come on, baby!”
She jumped down from her chair, with a piece of bread and butter in one hand, and the rabbit in the other; she was quite ready to go anywhere, with any one. Ross washed her sticky hands and tried to wash her face, but this annoyed her so much that he was not successful. Eddy brought out her coat and bonnet from a cupboard; put on his own very modish overcoat, and a cap, picked up the child, and off they went.
From an upper window, Ross watched them go across the great white waste that was so strange and yet somehow so familiar to him. Eddy stumbled now and then, over some hidden unevenness in the ground, but the child in his arms sat up straight and triumphant, her head, in the knitted hood, turning briskly from side to side. Then they were lost to sight in the falling snow and the gray morning light, and Ross turned back to the empty rooms.
It was only half past seven; he had nearly an hour before Mr. Solway expected him, and he thought he would use that time for investigating the engine of the limousine. Both cars were in deplorably good condition; there was little he could justifiably do to them, and he was, moreover, a mechanic of more enterprise than experience. But he was devoted to engines, and pretty well up in the theory of the internal combustion type.
He put on a suit of overalls he found in the garage; he started the engine and opened the hood; he was so pleased with that fine roar, that powerful vibration which was like the beat of a great, faithful heart, that he began to whistle. A superb motor; he would enjoy driving that car.
“She’s a beauty, all right!” said a voice, so very close to his ear that he jumped.
Standing at his elbow was a burly fellow of thirty-five or so, with a bulldog jaw; his voice and his smile were friendly, but his blue eyes, Ross thought, were not.
“Yes, sir!” he went on. “You’ve got a mighty fine car there.”
Ross said nothing. He did not care to continue his amateur explorations under those cold blue eyes. He shut off the engine, closed the hood, and turned toward the stranger with a challenging glance.
But the stranger was not at all abashed.