“Mouse nest in your pocket, Peter,” she said thickly. “Reversed the coat to shake it out, and spilled your stuff.”
Then she waited for Peter to be confounded. But Peter was not in the faintest degree troubled about either the coat or the papers. What did trouble him was the face and the blazing eyes of the girl concerning whom he would not admit, even to himself, his exact state of feeling.
“The mouse did not get on you, Linda?” he asked anxiously.
Linda shook her head. Suddenly she lost her self-control.
“Oh, Peter,” she wailed, “how could you do it?”
Peter’s lean frame tensed suddenly.
“I don’t understand, Linda,” he said quietly. “Exactly what have I done?”
Linda thrust the coat and the papers toward him accusingly and stood there wordless but with visible pain in her dark eyes. Peter smiled at her reassuringly.
“That’s not my coat, you know. If there is anything distressing about it, don’t lay it to me.”
“Oh, Peter!” cried Linda, “tell the truth about it. Don’t try any evasions. I am so sick of them.”