"Please sit down," she said, coloring at the unaccustomed deference. "I've a message from Uncle Adam. He understands about your son. He said you may wait here as long as you choose. In any room."
Trotting flurried paths to the pantry and the stove, Hannah at this point must needs halt midway between the two with the teapot in her hand to tell the tale of Kenny's considerate plea for supper in the kitchen. Though it had been largely a matter of old wood and lamp-yellow shadows, Kenny wished that a number of people who had never troubled to be just and call him considerate could hear what she said. Thank Heaven his self-respect was returning. These simple people were splendidly intuitional. They understood. An agreeable wave of confidence in his own judgment filled him with benevolence. He was to lose that confidence strangely in a little while. It came to him sitting there that he felt much as he had felt in the old care-free past before Brian had deserted, plunging him into abysmal despair.
"Perhaps to-night," Joan said, "you'd better sleep wherever Hannah says. And then tomorrow you can pick a room for yourself."
She slipped away with the grace of an elf. Spurred to pictures by the old brocade, Kenny wished he had some velvet knickerbockers and a satin coat. The thought of his knapsack wardrobe filled him with discontent. Hum! To-morrow he must prevail upon someone to conduct him to the nearest village in wire communication with the outside world.
To Garry two days later came a telegram from Craig Farm. It covered three typewritten pages and read like a theatrical manager's costume instructions to a star.
Garry stared.
"Oh, my Lord!" he groaned. "The sister's pretty!"
After a dazed interval, however, he found comfort in the thought that the postmark had been harmless. It had served no other purpose than to lead the penitential lunatic to Craig Farm. He would likely get no further.
"The ties in Brian's bureau," read Garry, thunderstruck at the wealth of detail. "My white flannels. Have cleaned. No place here. Had to ride seven miles with a milk-man to send this—"
Garry ran his eye over the rest and groaned again at the hopeless task ahead. Very well, he decided, reaching for the telephone, if he must invade the O'Neill studio, excavate and pack, Sid could help and Mac and Jan. Waiting, he read the telegram again. With Kenny's usual sense of values there was one brief sentence relative to some materials for work. He left the responsibility of selection there to Garry.