“How did you come here?” Devizes threw in.
“Motor bicycle,” said Bobby. “But there was a lot of waiting about before we could get away and it was a cold raw morning, and he had just his nightgown and dressing-gown and slippers. So hard to foresee everything.”
“But how did you come to be rescuing him?”
Bobby smiled at Devizes. “Somebody had to be rescuing him.”
He turned to Christina Alberta again. “Couldn’t bear the thought of his being under lock and key. He took a room, you see, in the place where I lodged, and there was something innocent and—delightful about him. I’ve a weakness, a sympathy perhaps, with absurdity.... You ought to go up to him and see him.”
“Yes, we’d better look at him,” said Devizes.
(Who the devil was this fellow?)
Bobby asserted himself. “Christina Alberta first, I think.”
He took Christina Alberta up to her daddy and closed the door on a warm embrace. “And now, Mr. de Vezes, or whatever you are,” he said to himself on the staircase, “where do you come in?” He descended and found Devizes standing very irritatingly upon his hearthrug before his fire. As he stood there a remote resemblance to Christina Alberta was perceptible. Bobby had an incoherent recognition of the fact that in some obscure way Devizes was responsible for Christina Alberta’s failure to produce blue eyes. He was a little slow in saying what he intended to say, and Devizes was able to take the initiative. “Forgive my blunt impertinence,” he said, “but may I ask who you are?”
“I’m a writer,” said Bobby, refraining from any glance at the accumulation of Aunt Suzannah material upon the side table.