"I--don't--know. Unless I find an open window,--just a teeny one would be big enough. But Gene is very particular about my not being undignified. I think," she added, with a delightfully confidential smile, "that Gene would rather have me be dignified and hungry than undignified and comfortable. Under those circumstances would you advise me to hunt for an open window?"
"It's a delicate point to decide. Who is Gene? That might have some bearing on the question."
She looked surprised at my ignorance.
"Oh, he's my brother,--my twin. He lives in that house. So does Mr. Ellison. He's my guardian. But it surely looks as though nobody were at home!"
"Don't you live there, too?" I demanded in surprise.
"Oh, no. I'm at Miss Elwood's school at Dunstan. I don't mean I am there this minute, because of course I am here; but I'm supposed to be there. I just came down to surprise Gene because it is our birthday--you see we have only one between us--and now I can't get in!" And she threw out her hands dramatically.
(The worst part of trying to reproduce Miss Benbow's language accurately is that it sounds silly in type, but it never sounded silly when she was looking at you with her big, ambiguous eyes, and you were waiting, always in affectionate amusement, for the next absurdity. I sometimes wondered whether that frank air of hers was nature's disguise for a maid's subtlety, or whether her subtle witchery lay really in the fact that she was so transparent that you could see her thoughts breathe.)
"I have always heard that it was wise," I said, with a grandfatherly air, "to save out at least a street-car fare before flinging all one's broad gold pieces to the beggar in the street."
She looked a little startled, then swiftly comprehending. I knew she must have bit her inner lip to keep from smiling, but she spoke sedately.
"A street-car fare wouldn't help me to get into the house, would it? And that's the trouble now. Though of course if I had had a street-car fare I shouldn't have had any trouble with the cabman and you wouldn't have had to come to the rescue, so another time I'll be careful and remember--"