"Where is he?" asked Brown, precariously balanced on the next fence.
"Do you know," she said, "this is becoming positively ghastly. He's
bolted into our cellar."
"Why, that's all right, isn't it?" asked Brown. "All you have to do is to
go inside, descend to the cellar, and light the gas."
"There's no gas."
"You have electric light?"
"Yes, but it's turned off at the main office. The house is closed for the
summer, you know."
Brown, balancing cautiously, walked the intervening fence like an amateur
on a tightrope.
Her pretty hat was a trifle on one side; her cheeks brilliant with
excitement and anxiety. Utterly oblivious of herself and of appearances
in her increasing solicitude for the adored Clarence, she sat the fence,
cross saddle, balancing with one hand and pointing with the other to the
barred ventilator into which Clarence had darted.
A wisp of sunny hair blew across her crimson cheek; slender, active,
excitedly unconscious of self, she seemed like some eager, adorable
little gamin perched there, intent on mischief.
"If you'll drop into our yard," she said, "and place that soap box
against the ventilator, Clarence can't get out that way!"
It was done before she finished the request. She disengaged herself from
the fencetop, swung over, hung an instant, and dropped into a soft flower
bed.
Breathing fast, disheveled, they confronted one another on the grass.
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