Some one had tried several keys in the back-porch door. Finally they had found one which fitted. A gust of wind swept through the house and the door was immediately closed.
Nathan had no desire to startle his wife. He was about to rise and call, to advise her of his presence in the darkened home, when there came a thunderous thud in the kitchen and an oath.
A man was in the kitchen! He had fallen over a chair!
Nathan drew back into the protective depths of the rocker. He was frightened. Most normal people know some degree of terror when it is evident burglars are in the house. He debated what he should do. Then it occurred to him to keep silent a moment, to see what the intruder was after and where he would go.
The burglar apparently righted the chair and groped his way to the sitting room, where Nathan held his breath and waited, completely hidden by the enormous back of the rocker. The intruder came in, still groping. Nathan could hear his deep breathing through the semi-dark.
Apparently the man stood for a time in the center of the room, hesitant. Then, to Nathan’s bewilderment, he sank down on the sofa. Nathan heard the springs creak plainly. Next came the scratch of a match, the silhouette the flare made of adjacent furniture on west wall and ceiling, and the acrid odor of cigar smoke. A queer burglar, this! He sat down on the family sofa and lit a smoke before proceeding to his loot. And Milly might come at any minute.
Milly came. She let herself in the front way. Nathan knew when she had arrived by another draught of spring wind and the sharp click when the front door closed and the lock snapped. But she did not turn on the lights. Her footstep sounded on the hard-wood floor of the hall and he knew without looking around that she was standing in the door.
The sofa springs creaked. Nathan waited for Milly to shriek when she beheld a burglar smoking in the room. He had his mind ready to reach for the chain of the reading lamp and snap it on. After that,—well, Nathan still knew how to use his fists.
But Milly did not shriek. Instead, he heard her say in the most normal, natural intonation of voice, softened with a trace of humor:
“Don’t take you long to make yourself comfortable, does it?”