At that her perplexed expression altered swiftly and that bewitching smile flashed in her gray eyes.
"Good heavens," I exclaimed, "you look more like her than ever when you smile! Don't you know you do?"
Instantly the hidden laughter lurking in the curled corners of her mouth rippled prettily into music.
"Oh, Lord," I said, "you are 'The Laughing Girl' or her twin sister!"
"And you," she laughed, "are so much funnier than you realize,—so delightfully young to be so in earnest! You consider the world a very, very serious place of residence,—don't you, Mr. O'Ryan? And life a most sober affair. And I am afraid that you also consider yourself quite the most ponderous proposition upon this tottering old planet. Don't you?"
Horrified at her levity I tried to grasp the amazing fact that my cook was poking fun at me. I could not compass the idea. All I seemed to realize was that I stood in my cellar confronting a slender laughing stranger by candle-light—an amazingly pretty girl who threatened most utterly to bewitch me.
"I'm sorry!—are you offended?" she asked, still laughing, and her dark-fringed eyes very brilliant with mischief.—"Are you very angry at me, Mr. O'Ryan?"
"Why do you think so?" I asked, wincing at her mirth.
"Because I suppose I know what you are thinking."
"What am I thinking?"