"If you knew what a sight you were!" he exclaimed, wiping his eyes
with the napkin, "with your hair all cobwebs and all that dirt on
your knees and those finger-marks on your apron, and being so small
and all"--he began to chuckle again.
"Small?" she repeated portentously.
"Oh, I didn't mean small compared with--with anybody else the same
size," he assured her quickly.
Catching her mollified glance, he went on more soberly.
"And how did you get in, now? No doors, I'll bet."
"Under the kitchen porch, through the little cellar window and up
the back stairs," she explained.
"You mean to say you were out in that little back hall and I never
heard you?"
She nodded. "I took pains to be still," she added, "so as to
surprise the--so if there had been--"
"I understand," he said gravely, "so as to get them if they had been
there. Well, you'd have done it. You're all right. Now, I suppose
you're wondering what all this means, aren't you? You haven't got
any idea who I am, have you? You don't know one single thing about
me, and you may be thinking--"
"I know one thing about you," she interrupted, "I know you went to
Yale."
The man's jaw dropped, his hands gripped the arm of the chair.
"And how in--how did you know that?" he cried roughly, with blazing
eyes.
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