Deering paused and sheepishly faced his hostess.
She was a small, trim, graceful woman, of the type that greets middle life smilingly and with no fear of what may lie beyond. Her dark hair had whitened, but her rosy cheeks belied its insinuations. She viewed Deering with frank curiosity, but with no indication of alarm. She was not a woman one would consciously annoy, and Deering’s face burned as he felt her eyes inspecting him from head to foot. He had never before been so heartily ashamed of himself; once out of this scrape, he meant to escape from Hood and lead a circumspect, orderly life.
“Which is Hood and which is Tuck?” the woman asked with a faint smile.
“The friar is the gentleman standing on one foot at your right,” Hood answered. “Conscious of my unworthiness, I plead guilty to being Hood—Hood the hobo delectable, the tramp incomprehensible!”
“Incomprehensible,” she repeated; “you strike me as altogether obvious.”
“You never made a greater mistake,” Hood returned with asperity. “But the question that now agitates us is simply this: do we eat or do we not?”
Deering looked longingly at a chair with which he felt strongly impelled to brain his suave, unruffled companion. Hood apparently was hardened to such encounters, and stood his ground unflinchingly. All Deering’s instincts of chivalry were roused by the little woman, who had every reason for turning them out of doors. He resolved to make it easy for her to do so.
“I beg your pardon—” he faltered.
Hood signalled to him furiously behind her back to maintain silence.
“No apology would be adequate,” she remarked with dignity. “We’d better drop that and consider your errand on its strict merits.”