"Funny kid, isn't she?" remarked Mr. Jerry, realizing that if there was to be any conversation between them he would have to begin. "I wish you could have seen her when she came over with her cat to ask if we would take the beast to board. Who's the owner of that joint of yours? I'd like to tell him what I think of him for separating a homesick little girl from her pet."
"It would be rather a nuisance if the place was overrun with cats and dogs and children," Miss Thorley said coldly. "There wouldn't be much peace or comfort in the house."
"The peace and comfort you've had don't seem to agree with all of you," remarked Mr. Jerry pleasantly. "I've seen some of your neighbors who look as if they needed a big dose of noise and discomfort."
"You must mean Mr. Wells. He does have rather a touch-me-not, speak-to-me-never manner. And the fuss he makes if there is any noise in the place after ten o'clock! Imagine him with a cat or a bird." The picture her imagination made was so impossible that she laughed.
Mr. Jerry drew a contented sigh and ventured to move a trifle nearer. He started to say something and then changed his mind. He wouldn't say anything just then that might bring back that distant expression to her face. He knew very well how cold and forbidding she could be. So instead of saying what he wished to say he talked of Mary Rose and George Washington, and she listened and smiled and made holes in the turf with her parasol, but never once did she speak of the conversation she had had with Mary Rose which had caused her to throw down her brushes and treat herself to a holiday.
Mary Rose's face was an incandescent light as, with a good-by pat for the blackest pony, she ran back to them.
"I felt like a queen!" she cried. "It was splendid. Oh, won't you have a ride?" She looked from one to the other. "I'll pay. I'm making lots of money. You needn't worry another minute about George Washington's board," she told Mr. Jerry. "It's as good as paid."
He laughed. "I won't worry and I shan't ride the ponies. My legs are too long. I'd have to tie double knots in them to keep them off the ground. But I'll take a turn on the merry-go-round with you." He nodded toward that attractive circle of animals as it went around and around to the accompaniment of the wheezy organ. "I dare you to come with us." He looked straight at Miss Thorley.
"Oh, please!" Mary Rose clapped her hands. "You will, won't you, Miss Thorley? You needn't be afraid," she whispered. "I'm sure he's strong enough to hold you on."
Miss Thorley looked anything but afraid as she frowned at the merry-go-round and at Mr. Jerry impartially. But when she met Mary Rose's eyes, filled with a great hunger for merry-go-rounds, she laughed softly and told Mr. Jerry that, of course, she wouldn't take a dare, she never had and she never would, and she thought she'd choose the giraffe because his long neck gave a rider so much to cling to.