"Oh, Kate!"
"What is the matter, child?"
"I told grandpa the combination!"
III
CARRINGTON tumbled out of bed at six and threw out the old-fashioned green blinds. A warm, golden summer morning greeted his eyes, and the peaceful calm of Sunday lay upon the land. A robin piped in an apple-tree, an oriole flashed across the flower-beds, and a bee buzzed just outside the sill. A brave day! He stepped into his tub, bathed, and dressed in his riding-clothes, for there was to be a canter down to the sea and return before breakfast. From the window he could see the groom walking the beautiful thoroughbreds up and down the driveway. There were only two this morning; evidently Norah was not going.
The Cavenaugh girls had created almost a scandal and a revolution when they first appeared at Glenwood. People had read and talked about women riding like men, they had even seen pictures of them, but to find them close at hand was something of a shock. Yet, when they saw with what ease the Cavenaugh girls took the hedges, ditches and fences, how their mounts never suffered from saddle-galls, and, above all, how the two always kept even pace with the best men riders, opinion veered; and several ladies changed their habits.
Norah, who saw the droll side of things, once said that the accepted riding habit for women reminded her of a kimono for a harp.
Carrington stole gently down to the horses. He had great affection for the sleek thoroughbreds. Their ears went forward when they saw him, and they whinnied softly. He rubbed their velvet noses and in turn they nozzled him for sugar-loaves. Had it not been for the night and the attendant mysteries, his happiness would have been complete. People waste many precious moments in useless retrospection; so Carrington resolutely forced the subject from his mind. One thing was certain, the Cavenaughs knew who the burglar was; and there was something strange in the idea of an empty safe in a millionaire's home. Pshaw! He took out the expected sugar-loaves and extended them on both palms. The pair lipped his hand and crunched the sweets with evident relish.