"'Oh, you needn't glare at me!' exclaimed Bep"
"Quick—it's your father, Split!" she cried.
Split looked at her. She trusted Bep no more than she did Sissy, whose lieutenant the blonde twin was.
"Oh, you needn't glare at me!" exclaimed Bep, her guilty conscience sensitive to accusation by implication. "Fom told me all you told her about him. She was 'fraid you were coming after her for letting you fall off the see-saw, and she told me the whole thing. She said you expected him to-night—don't you?"
"How—do you know it's—my father that's at the door?" demanded Split, all the warier of the enemy because of her acquaintance with her secret.
"Why!" Bep opened clear, china-blue eyes, as shallow and baffling as bits of porcelain. "Hasn't he been here once for you already, while you were out?"
Split turned and ran down the hall. In the minute this took she had lived through a long, heart-breaking, childish regret—regret for the familiar, apprehension of the unknown. It was so warm and snug in this Madigan house; she seemed so to belong there. Why must that unknown parent come to claim her just now, when her spirit was still sorely vexed with the failings of the various fathers she had borne with in one short afternoon!
She got to the top of the staircase that led down to the front door, when shelled in Split's throat and held her choking, as she grasped the banister and gazed yearningly down upon him. For a moment she had the idea of flying down past him to save him from what was coming. But it was too late; already he had his hand on the door-knob. Did he know who it was for whom he was opening his door? Split gasped. Did he anticipate what was coming? Some one ought to tell him—to break it to him—to—
But evidently Split herself could not have done this, for in almost the identical moment that Madigan resentfully threw open the door, a stream of water was dashed into his astonished face.
From her point of vantage on the stairway Split saw a paralyzed Sissy, the empty pitcher in her guilty hand, the grin of satisfaction frozen on her panic-stricken round face; while, before she fled, her eyes shot one quick, hunted glance over Madigan's dripping head to the joyous enemy above.