The man with a keen look, a quick smile, and a change of manner, caught her up. “You’re a good observer. Yes. That accounts for my hands.”

Pleasant was somewhat disquieted by his look, and returned it suspiciously. Not only was his change of manner, though very sudden, quite collected, but his former manner, which he resumed, had a certain suppressed confidence and sense of power in it that were half threatening.

“Will your father be long?” he inquired.

“I don’t know. I can’t say.”

“As you supposed he was at home, it would seem that he has just gone out? How’s that?”

“I supposed he had come home,” Pleasant explained.

“Oh! You supposed he had come home? Then he has been some time out? How’s that?”