“S-sh!” hissed Mamie.
Steve collapsed with the feeling that it was not his lucky night, while Mamie bent anxiously over the cot. The sleeper, however, did not wake. He gurgled, gave a sigh, then resumed his interrupted repose. Mamie returned to her seat.
“Yes?” she said, as if nothing had occurred, and as if there had been no interval between Steve’s remark and her reply.
Steve could not equal her calmness. He had been strung up when he spoke, and the interruption had undone him. He reflected ruefully that he might have said something to the point if he had been allowed to go straight on; now he had forgotten what he had meant to say.
“Oh, nothing,” he replied.
Silence fell once more on the nursery.
Steve was bracing himself up for another attack when suddenly there came a sound of voices from the stairs. One voice was a mere murmur, but the other was sharp and unmistakable, the incisive note of Lora Delane Porter. It brought Steve and Mamie to their feet simultaneously.
“What’s it matter?” said Steve stoutly, answering the panic in Mamie’s eyes. “It’s not her house, and I got a perfect right to be here.”
“You don’t know her. I shall get into trouble.”
Mamie was pale with apprehension. She knew her Lora Delane Porter, and she knew what would happen if Steve were to be discovered there. It was, as Keggs put it, as much as her place was worth.