But he retreated in smiling protest, picked up his hand-organ, and slung
it across his shoulders. "The door, Bubbles."
Bubbles sprang to let the beggar out.
"To-morrow," said Barbara, "at the same time. Good-by, and thank you."
"Good-by, and thank _you_," said Blizzard.
Bubbles followed him to the head of the stairs and watched, not without
admiration, the astounding ease of the legless one's rapid descent.
Harry, the workman, having disengaged the old japanned lock from the
door, rose to his feet, and turned to Barbara with a certain quiet
eagerness. "Look here," he said, "it's none of my business, but I know,
and you don't. That man," he waved the screw-driver toward the door by
which Blizzard had departed, "is poison. There's nothing he'd stop
at. Nothing."
"Quite so," said Barbara coldly; "and, as you say, it's hardly anybody's
affair but mine."
The workman was good-nature personified. "If you _must_ go on with him,"
he said, "haven't you a big brother or somebody with nothing better to
do than drop in, and," his eyes sought the clay head of Blizzard, "watch
the good work go on?" He stepped closer to the head, and examined it
with real interest. "It _is_ good work," he said; "it's splendid."
Barbara was mollified. "What," she said, "is so very wrong about poor
Mr. Blizzard?"
"Oh," said the young man, "we know a great deal about him, and we are
trying very hard to gather the proofs."
"_We?_"
"I'm a very little wheel in the machinery of the secret service."
"I _knew_," said Barbara, "the moment I saw you that you weren't _only_
a locksmith or a carpenter. Does Mr. Blizzard know what you are?"
"He can't prove it, unless you tell him."
"I sha'n't do that."
"How often will he have to pose for you?"
"Heaven only knows. But I think"--and she looked the young man in the
face, and smiled, for his face had charmed her--"I think that if ever I
finish with Mr. Blizzard, I shall ask you to be my next model."
The admiration with which the young man regarded Barbara was no less
frankly and openly expressed than was hers for him. "Until this moment,"
he said, "I have never understood the eager desire which some people
have to sit for their portraits. Whenever _you_ say."