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At last Miss Carrington laid her book across her knee and watched Kit’s movements, frankly inviting confidence. Becoming conscious of this, he brought himself up with his elbow on the mantel and, turning toward her, said in that big, cheery voice of his that the old lady never could hear without thrilling to it:

“I beg your pardon, Aunt Anne! Do I give you the willies doing the zoo-tiger act like this?”

“I don’t know their Christian name—though why jungle ways should have a Christian name I don’t see—but if irritated nerves are willies, then, yes, you give them to me,” said his aunt.

She spoke in a light, slightly acrid voice, her syllables articulated like Italian.

Kit laughed.

“Nice Aunt Anne!” he approved her, impersonally. “You always sit on a chap in a delightful way. I’ll be seated, thanks.”

He dropped into the deep chair on the right of the fireplace, stretching out to his great length. But Miss Carrington saw that he at once possessed himself of the tongs and began to open and shut them in a way as tiresome as his roaming had been.