But Prudence was too heavily burdened to laugh. She smiled hospitably, and closed the door upon him. Fairy was tripping down the stairs, very tall, very handsome, very gay. She pinched her sister's arm as she passed, and the front room door swung behind. But she did not greet her friend. She stood erect by the door, her head tilted on one side, sniffing, sniffing.
"What in the world?" she wondered. Then she blushed. Perhaps it was something he had used on his hair! Or perhaps he had been having his suit cleaned! "Oh, I guess it's nothing, after all," she stammered. But Eugene Babler was strangely quiet. He looked about the room in a peculiar questioning way.
"Shall I raise a window?" he suggested finally. "It's rather--er--hot in here."
"Yes, do," she urged. "Raise all of them. It's--do you--do you notice a--a funny smell in here? Or am I imagining it? It--it almost makes me sick!"
"Yes, there is a smell," he said, in evident relief. "I thought maybe you'd been cleaning the carpet with something. It's ghastly. Can't we go somewhere else?"
"Come on." She opened the door into the sitting-room. "We're coming out here if you do not mind, Prue." And Fairy explained the difficulty.
"Why, that's very strange," said Prudence, knitting her brows. "I was in there right after supper, and I didn't notice anything. What does it smell like?"
"It's a new smell to me," laughed Fairy, "but something about it is strangely suggestive of our angel-twins."
Prudence went to investigate, and Fairy shoved a big chair near the table, waving her hand toward it lightly with a smile at Babbie. Then she sank into a low rocker, and leaned one arm on the table. She wrinkled her forehead thoughtfully.
"That smell," she began. "I am very suspicious about it. It was not at all natural----"
"Excuse me, Fairy," he said, ill at ease for the first time in her knowledge of him. "Did you know your sleeve was coming out?"
"Both arms, apparently," he continued, smiling, but his face was flushed.
"Excuse me just a minute, will you?" Fairy was unruffled. She sought her sister. "Look here, Prue,--what do you make of this? I'm coming to pieces! I'm hanging by a single thread, as it were."
Her sleeves were undoubtedly ready to drop off at a second's notice! Prudence was shocked. She grew positively white in the face.