Grant turned his head indolently and regarded her.
“If it isn't a Christmas angel--they're always very blue and very golden, and pinky-whitey--if it isn't a Christmas angel, for the Lord's sake what is it?” He gave his head a slight shake, as if the problem was beyond his solving, and flicked the ashes from his cigarette.
“Oh, I could pinch you!” She gritted her teeth to prove she meant what she said.
“It says it could pinch me.” Grant lazily addressed the trout. “I wonder why it didn't, then, when it was being squashed?”
“I just wish to goodness I had! Only I suppose Aunt Phoebe--”
“I do believe it's got a temper. I wonder, now, if it could be a LIVE angel?” Grant spoke to the softly swaying poplars.
“Oh, you--there now!” She made a swift little rush at him, nipped his biceps between a very small thumb and two fingers, and stood back, breathing quickly and regarding him in a shamed defiance. “I'll show you whether I'm alive!” she panted vindictively.
“It's alive, and it's a humming-bird. Angels don't pinch.” Grant laid a finger upon his arm and drawled his solution of a trivial mystery. “It mistook me for a honeysuckle, and gave me a peck to make sure.” He smiled indulgently, and exhaled a long wreath of smoke from his nostrils. “Dear little humming-birds--so simple and so harmless!”
“And I've promised to be nice to--THAT!” cried Evadna, in bitterness, and rushed past him to the porch.
Being a house built to shelter a family of boys, and steps being a superfluity scorned by their agile legs, there was a sheer drop of three feet to the ground upon that side. Evadna made it in a jump, just as the boys did, and landed lightly upon her slippered feet.
“I hate you--hate you--HATE YOU!” she cried, her eyes blazing up at his amused face before she ran off among the trees.
“It sings a sweet little song,” he taunted, and his laughter followed her mockingly as she fled from him into the shadows.
“What's the joke, Good Injun? Tell us, so we can laugh too.” Wally and Jack hurried in from the kitchen and made for the doorway where he stood.
From under his straight, black brows Grant sent a keen glance into the shade of the grove, where, an instant before, had flickered the white of Evadna's dress. The shadows lay there quietly now, undisturbed by so much as a sleepy bird's fluttering wings.
