Beryl stirred and Robin ventured to speak.
"Beryl, are you awake? If Mr. Norris bought that invention of your brother's, would it make things easier for—the Mill people?"
Beryl jerked herself up on her elbow.
"Red-Robin Forsyth, are you crazy? Fussing over that absurd toy of Dale's at this hour? Why should you care?" Beryl sank back into her pillows and stretched. "Didn't Mr. Kraus have the most glorious eyes?"
Robin answered with amazing positiveness. "No, I hated his eyes. They were not true eyes. But—I like Dale—lots." And just here, for the second time, she locked her lips on her precious secret for Dale must never know that she remembered him; all that belonged to her childhood. Beryl might laugh, too, as she often did at her "fancies," and call her "funny."
Thinking of Dale brought her thoughts back to the Mills so that while Beryl snuggled her sleepy head back into her pillow, she stared at the thin shaft of light that shone under the door and wished she was big instead of "a little bit of a thing" and very wise so that she would know what to do to show these people in Wassumsic that she—a Forsyth, did care.