took her place.

"Nothing seems to trouble you!" he said.

"No; nothing much," she made airy response. "What's troubling
yourself, Walter?"

"Don't let that worry you!" he returned, seeming to consider this
to be repartee of an effective sort; for he furnished a short
laugh to go with it, and turned to his coffee with the manner of
one who has satisfactorily closed an episode.

"Walter always seems to have so many secrets!" Alice said,
studying him shrewdly, but with a friendly enough amusement in
her scrutiny. "Everything he does or says seems to be acted for
the benefit of some mysterious audience inside himself, and he
always gets its applause. Take what he said just now: he seems
to think it means something, but if it does, why, that's just
another secret between him and the secret audience inside of him!
We don't really know anything about Walter at all, do we, mama?"

Walter laughed again, in a manner that sustained her theory well
enough; then after finishing his coffee, he took from his pocket
a flattened packet in glazed blue paper; extracted with stained
fingers a bent and wrinkled little cigarette, lighted it, hitched
up his belted trousers with the air of a person who turns from
trifles to things better worth his attention, and left the room.

Alice laughed as the door closed. "He's ALL secrets," she said.
"Don't you think you really ought to know more about him, mama?"