Seraph. We turned surprised looks on each other. Our junior seldom left our heels.
"I remember now," reflected Angel, "that, as he passed her, she stopped him. I didn't think anything of it. What can she have found out? D'you s'pose she's pumping the kid?"
We were left to our conjectures for fully a quarter of an hour. Then we heard him plodding leisurely up the stairs. We greeted him impatiently.
"What's up? Did you blab? Whatever did she say?" We hurled the questions at him.
The Seraph maintained an air of calm superiority. He even hopped from one floral wreath on the carpet to another, with his hands behind his back, as was his custom when he wished to reflect undisturbed. He ignored our importunities.
Angel, in exasperation, took him by the collar.
"You tell us why she kept you down there so long!"
Thus cornered, The Seraph raised his large eyes to our inquiring faces with great solemnity.
"She kept me," he said, "to cuddle me, an' to give me this—" he showed a white peppermint lozenge between his little teeth.
To cuddle him. Was the world coming to an end?
[158]
