The Green Mouse Part 27

An anxious silence was his answer. "You didn't all go in, did you?" he demanded in a melodious bellow.

"Oh, no, Pa-_pah!_"

"Did two of you go?"

"Oh-h, n-o, Pa-_pah!_"

"Well, which one did?"

The line of beauty wavered for a moment; then Sybilla stepped slowly to the front, three paces, and halted with downcast eyes.

"I told you not to, didn't I?" said her father, scowling the monocle out of his eye and reinserting it.

"Y-yes, Pa-_pah_."

"But you _did?_"

"Y-yes----"

"That will do! Flavilla! Drusilla! You are excused," dismissing the two guiltless triplets with a wave of the terrible eyegla.s.s; and when they had faced to the rear and retired in good order, closing the door behind them, he regarded his delinquent daughter in wrathy and rubicund dismay.

"What did you see in that laboratory?" he demanded.

Sybilla began to count on her fingers. "As I walked around the room I noticed jars, bottles, tubes, lamps, retorts, blowpipes, batteries----"

"Did you notice a small, shiny machine that somewhat resembles the interior economy of a watch?"

"Yes, Pa-_pah_, but I haven't come to that yet----"

"Did you go near it?"

"Quite near----"

"You didn't touch it, did you?"

"I was going to tell you----"

"_Did_ you?" he bellowed musically. "Answer me, Sybilla!"

"Y-yes--I did."

"What did you suppose it to be?"

"I thought--we all thought--that you kept a wireless telephone instrument in there----"

"Why? Just because I happen to be president of the Amalgamated Wireless Trust Company?"

"Yes. And we were dying to see a wireless telephone work.... I thought I'd like to call up Central--just to be sure I could make the thing go-- _What_ is the matter, Pa-_pah?_"

He dropped into a wadded armchair and motioned Sybilla to a seat opposite. Then with another frightful facial contortion he reimbedded the monocle.

"So you deliberately opened that door and went in to rummage?"

"No," said the girl; "we were--skylarking a little, on our way to the gymnasium; and I gave Brasilia a little shove toward the laboratory door, and then Flavilla pushed me--very gently--and somehow I--the door flew open and my mask fell off and rolled inside; and I went in after it. That is how it happened--partly."

She lifted her dark and very beautiful eyes to her stony parent, then they dropped, and she began tracing figures and arabesques on the polished floor with the point of her foil. "That is partly how," she repeated.

"What is the other part?"

"The other part was that, having unfortunately disobeyed you, and being already in the room, I thought I might as well stay and take a little peep around----"

Her father fairly bounced in his padded chair. The velvet-eyed descendant of Eve shot a fearful glance at him and continued, still casually tracing invisible arabesques with her foil's point.

"You see, don't you," she said, "that being actually _in_, I thought I might as well do something before I came out again, which would make my disobedience worth the punishment. So I first picked up my mask, then I took a scared peep around. There were only jars and bottles and things.... I was dreadfully disappointed. The certainty of being punished and then, after all, seeing nothing but bottles, _did_ seem rather unfair.... So I--walked around to--to see if I could find something to look at which would repay me for the punishment.... There is a proverb, isn't there Pa-_pah?_--something about being executed for a lamb----"

"Go on!" he said sharply.

"Well, all I could find that looked as though I had no business to touch it was a little jeweled machine----"

"_That_ was it! Did you touch it?"

"Yes, several times. Was it a wireless?"

"Never mind! Yes, it's one kind of a wireless instrument. Go on!"

Sybilla shook her head:

"I'm sure I don't see why you are so disturbingly emphatic; because I haven't an idea how to send or receive a wireless message, and I hadn't the vaguest notion how that machine might work. I tried very hard to make it go; I turned several screws and pushed all the push-b.u.t.tons----"

Mr. Carr emitted a hollow, despairing sound--a sort of musical groan--and feebly plucked at s.p.a.ce.

"I tried every lever, screw, and spring," she went on calmly, "but the machine must have been out of order, for I only got one miserable little spark----"

"You got a _spark?_"

"Yes--just a tiny, noiseless atom of white fire----"

Her father bounced to his feet and waved both hands at her distractedly.

"Do you know what you've done?" he bellowed.

"N-no----"

"Well, you've prepared yourself to fall in love! And you've probably induced some indescribable pup to fall in love with you! And _that's_ what you've done!"

"In--_love!_"

"Yes, you have!"