“She is absent,” he said; “but I will not grieve, for she will return.”
He hurried up the garden-path, and tried to turn the handle of the front door. “Ah, it is locked—the back one also, I suppose;” and he trotted cheerfully to the rear of the house.
“They are away,” he said, when he found he could not gain entrance there; “and some boys would be afraid. I shall not be;” and he lifted his face up proudly to the overcast sky, “not even if they stay all night. I will look into my charming room;” and he shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered into one of the back rooms on the ground floor. Then he tried to raise the window with his hand. “Why, it is open,” he said delightedly; “I can get in. Why did that woman leave open this window?”
Eugene crawled in, and walked through the house seeking matches, and lighting the gas everywhere he went to make the rooms cheerful for the return of the sergeant and his wife. However, they did not appear, though seven o’clock came, then eight, and finally nine. Only the two cats came home, springing in through the open window, and greeting him with demure expressions of pleasure.
The boy fed and caressed them; and then, followed by the pair who were in a state of silent satisfaction, he sat down by his window, and resting his elbows on the window-sill, looked out across the garden into the street. It was very quiet. The Hardys had no near neighbors, and only at rare intervals did anyone pass, yet Eugene was not afraid.
“I am happy—happy,” he murmured, pressing his face against the tortoiseshell fur of one of the cats. “I cannot be lonely unless she stays a long, long time. Probably they are to remain all night. It must be a visit to the aunt. Come in, pussy. I must close the window, for it is cold.”
The cat, however, did not wish him to close it. With symptoms of great excitement she rubbed herself back and forth against his arms, and acted as if she were trying to attract his attention to the other cat, who had sprung boldly out on one of the flower-beds.
Eugene placed one hand on the window-sill, and jumped out after her. “What is the matter, Dodo?” he said.