“Why, you did it yourself!” I exclaimed.
“Did I? Strange I should forget.”
“You found everything all right, didn’t you?”
“The door was not only locked but bolted,” Winnie replied; but her manner was constrained, and her hand, which I happened to touch, was cold as ice.
“Come right to bed,” I exclaimed, “you have taken cold.”
Winnie did not reply, but her teeth were chattering. She curled up in bed and buried her face in her pillow. I was sleepy and soon dozed off, but I was vaguely conscious in my slumbers that I had an uneasy bedfellow; that Winnie tossed and tumbled and even groaned. When I awoke she was sitting, dressed, on the window sill. It may have been the early light but her face looked gray, and there was a drawn, set expression about the mouth which I had never seen there before.
“What is the matter?” I asked again.
She replied, in that cold, unnatural voice, “Nothing.”
Just then there was a hard knocking at my door. Milly shouted joyfully, “Many happy returns of the day,” and swooping down upon me buried me with kisses. Adelaide followed, and in a more dignified manner congratulated me on my birthday. “No flowers, Tib,” Milly explained, “because you set your face against that sort of thing, and I was determined to let you have your own way on your birthday. Winnie, what makes you sit over there like a sphinx, with your nose touched with sunrise? Come here and help us give Tib her seventeen slaps and one to grow on.”
“Tib will find my present on the stand at the head of the bed,” Winnie replied, and turning, I discovered an envelope labelled, “For the European tour.” It contained a crisp new bill of twenty dollars.