"No blow-out? Then—then—what did I hear?" She asked the question of Burke, and, as she asked it, recoiled suddenly, as if he had struck her.
"P'raps you got a back-fire," he suggested, reassuringly. "You come down the steep hill up there, didn't you?"
Doris pulled herself together, shrugged her shoulders, and resolutely smiled at him. She knew the difference between the sound of a blow-out and the back-firing of an irritated engine. But some abysmal instinct made her suddenly cautious, though with that same instinct her inner panic developed. What had she heard?
"I put on a 'spare,' anyway," Burke was saying. "The rear right looked a little weak, so I changed it."
He was tacitly explaining the bill he had submitted, but Doris did not hear him. What had she heard? Insistently the question repeated itself in her mind. She turned dizzily, and went back for the coat. As she did so she heard Burke's voice.
"Why—hel-lo!"
Even in that moment she observed its modulation. It had begun on a note of cheery surprise and ended on one of sharp concern. Turning, she saw Laurie.
He had nodded to Burke, and was obviously trying to speak naturally.
"What you been doin' to yerself?" he gasped