The look in Professor Ladue's eyes changed. Some fear may have come into it; a fear that always seemed to be latent where Sally was concerned. His look was not pleasant to see directed toward his own little daughter. The savage expression was still there, and a frown, denoting deep displeasure.
"Sally!" he exclaimed angrily. Then he was silent for a time; a time, it is to be presumed, long enough for him to collect his scattered faculties and to be able to speak as calmly as a professor should speak to his daughter, aged ten.
"Sally," he said at last, coldly, "may I ask how you came here?"
"Why," Sally replied, speaking hastily, "I was coming in town, this afternoon,—I planned it, long ago, with mother,—and—"
"Is your mother with you?" the professor interrupted.
To a careful observer he might have seemed more startled than ever; but perhaps Sally was not a careful observer. At all events, she gave no sign.
"Mother had a headache and couldn't come," said Sally quietly. She must have been afraid that her father would ask other questions. It was quite natural that he should want to know who did come with her. So she went on rapidly. "But I thought I'd come just the same, so I did, and I went to your laboratory, but you'd just gone and I followed on after and I caught you just as you turned this corner, and now I would like to have you go down to the shops with me. I want to buy something for mother and Charlie. Will you go with me, father?"
The professor did not ask any of the questions that Sally feared. Possibly he had as much fear of the answers as Sally had of the questions. So he asked none of the questions that one would think a father would ask of his little daughter in such circumstances. As Sally neared the end of her rapid speech, his eyes had narrowed.
"So," he said slowly, "I gather from what you have left unsaid that your mother sent you after me."
There was the faintest suspicion of a sneer in his voice, but he tried to speak lightly. As had happened many times before, he did not succeed.