“Kaliston! Kaliston won’t keep me from worrying. Oh, listen to that harmonicon!”
“Gussie, I’m sure he isn’t thinking of Mrs. North.”
“Mrs. North is thinking of him, which is a great deal more dangerous. Cyrus, you must ask Dr. Lavendar to interfere.”
As this was at least the twentieth assault upon poor Cyrus’s common-sense, the citadel trembled.
“Do you wish me to go into brain-fever before your eyes, just from worry?” Gussie demanded. “You must go!”
“Well, maybe, perhaps, to-morrow—”
“To-night—to-night,” said Augusta, faintly.
And Cyrus surrendered.
“Look under the bed before you go,” Gussie murmured.
Cyrus looked. “Nobody there,” he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving hands, Cyrus’s heart reproached him.
