He lifted his hand and demanded, "Take your shoes off!"

"Uh?"

He gulped. He stammered, "I mean--I mean your shoes are soaked through.

If you'll sit in the car, I'll put your shoes up by the engine. It's

pretty well heated from racing it in the mud. You can get your stockings

dry under the cowl."

She was amused by the elaborateness with which he didn't glance at her

while she took off her low shoes and slipped her quite too thin black

stockings under the protecting tin cowl. She reflected, "He has such a

nice, awkward gentleness. But such bad taste! They're really quite good

ankles. Apparently ankles are not done, in Teal bug circles. His sisters

don't even have limbs. But do fairies have sisters? He is a fairy. When

I'm out of the mud he'll turn his raincoat into a pair of lordly white

wings, and vanish. But what will become of the cat?"

Thus her tired brain, like a squirrel in a revolving cage, while she sat

primly and scraped at a clot of rust on a tin plate and watched him put

on the bacon and eggs. Wondering if cats were used for this purpose in

the Daggett family, she put soaked, unhappy Vere de Vere on her feet, to

her own great comfort and the cat's delight. It was an open car, and the

rain still rained, and a strange young man was a foot from her tending

the not very crackly fire, but rarely had Claire felt so domestic.

Milt was apparently struggling to say something. After several bobs of

his head he ventured, "You're so wet! I'd like for you to take my

raincoat."

"No! Really! I'm already soaked through. You keep dry."

He was unhappy about it. He plucked at a button of the coat. She turned

him from the subject. "I hope Lady Vere de Vere is getting warm, too."

"Seems to be. She's kind of demanding. She wanted a little car of her

own, but I didn't think she could keep up with me, not on a long hike."

"A little car? With her paws on the tiny wheel? Oh--sweet! Are you going

far, Mr. Daggett?"

"Yes, quite a ways. To Seattle, Washington."

"Oh, really? Extraordinary. We're going there, too."

"Honest? You driving all the way? Oh, no, of course your father----"

"No, he doesn't drive. By the way, I hope he isn't too miserable back

there."

"I'll be darned. Both of us going to Seattle. That's what they call a

coincidence, isn't it! Hope I'll see you on the road, some time. But I

don't suppose I will. Once you're out of the mud, your Gomez will simply

lose my Teal."

"Not necessarily. You're the better driver. And I shall take it easy.

Are you going to stay long in Seattle?" It was not merely a polite

dinner-payment question. She wondered; she could not place this

fresh-cheeked, unworldly young man so far from his home.




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