He nodded satisfiedly.
“You’ll do, lad,” he said, briefly.
Then he smiled as he caught sight of Mrs. Kipley, standing with the rigidity of an automaton, dust cloth in hand.
“You remember Mrs. Kipley,” he said, significantly. The boy wheeled instantly.
“Don’t I!” he said, laughingly, and something in his advance galvanized Mrs. Kipley into life again.
“None of your French fashions with me,” she said, severely, extending her right hand to him, less in greeting than as a rampart.
He swept a wonderful bow over it. Bent to it as a courtier might have done, and kissed its wrinkled, work-hardened back lightly. Then he straightened up to look her full in the eyes, and laughed his bubbling laugh once more.
“Do you still make those wonderful twisted doughnuts, Mrs. Kipley?” he asked, gayly. “I’ve bragged about them in Paris till they’re famous.”
Mrs. Kipley was scrutinizing the back of her hand minutely, to see if it was still intact. Finding it apparently uninjured, she drew breath and looked the surprising apparition in the face. Her own relaxed to his handsome, dashing youth and to his praise.
“I guess they’re about the same,” she said, dryly. But John Carrington chuckled to himself. He recognized the subjugation of Mrs. Kipley.