“Will you go?” he asked wistfully.
“Why not?” said the girl.
The young man laughed with pleasure.
“I am unpardonable,” he said. “I live so much alone—that I forget.” Like one who, issuing from a close room, encounters the morning air, he drew a deep, happy breath. “It has been three years since a woman has been in this house,” he said simply. “And I have not even thanked you,” he went on, “nor asked you if you are cold,” he cried remorsefully, “or hungry. How nice it would be if you would say you are hungry.”
The girl walked beside him, laughing lightly, and, as they disappeared into the greater hall beyond, Winthrop heard her cry: “You never robbed your own ice-chest? How have you kept from starving? Show me it, and we’ll rob it together.”
The voice of their host rang through the empty house with a laugh like that of an eager, happy child.
“Heavens!” said the owner of the car, “isn’t she wonderful!” But neither the prostrate burglars, nor the servants, intent on strapping their wrists together, gave him any answer.
As they were finishing the supper filched from the ice-chest, Fred was brought before them from the kitchen. The blow the burglar had given him was covered with a piece of cold beefsteak, and the water thrown on him to revive him was thawing from his leather breeches. Mr. Carey expressed his gratitude, and rewarded him beyond the avaricious dreams even of a chauffeur.
As the three trespassers left the house, accompanied by many pails of water, the girl turned to the lonely figure in the doorway and waved her hand.
“May we come again?” she called.