It had not been a delusion.

And then I straightened on my knees suddenly, for an automobile passing
under the windows had sounded four short honks and two long ones. The
signal was followed instantly by a crash. The foot bath had fallen from
its supports, and lay, quivering and vibrating with horrid noises at my
feet. The next moment Mr. Harbison had thrown open the door and leaped
into the room.

"Who's there?" he demanded. Against the light I could see him reaching
for his hip pocket, and the rest crowding up around him.

"It's only me," I quavered, "that is, I. The--the dish pan upset."

"Dish pan!" Bella said from back in the crowd. "Kit, of course!"

Jim forced his way through then and turned on the lights. I have no
doubt I looked very strange, kneeling there on the bare floor, with a
row of pans mounted on bricks behind me, and the furniture all piled on
itself in a back corner.

"Kit! What in the world--!" Jim began, and stopped. He stared from me to
the pans, to the windows, to the bric-a-brac on the mantel, and back to
me.

I sat stonily silent. Why should I explain? Whenever I got into a
foolish position, and tried to explain, and tell how it happened, and
who was really to blame, they always brought it back to ME somehow. So I
sat there on the floor and let them stare. And finally Lollie Mercer got
her breath and said, "How perfectly lovely; it's a charade!"

And Anne guessed "kitchen" at once. "Kit, you know, and the pans
and--all that," she said vaguely. At that they all took to guessing! And
I sat still, until Mr. Harbison saw the storm in my eyes and came over
to me.

"Have you hurt your ankle?" he said in an undertone. "Let me help you
up."

"I am not hurt," I said coldly, "and even if I were, it would be
unnecessary to trouble you."

"I can not help being troubled," he returned, just as evenly. "'You see,
it makes me ill for days if my car runs over a dog.'"

Luckily, at that moment Dal came in. He pushed his way through the
crowd without a word, shut off the lights, crashed through the pans and
slammed the shutters closed. Then he turned and addressed the rest.

"Of all the lunatics--!" he began, only there was more to it than that.
"A fellow goes to all kinds of trouble to put an end to this miserable
situation, and the entire household turns out and sets to work to
frustrate the whole scheme. You LIKE to stay here, don't you, like
chickens in a coop? Where's Flannigan?"

Nobody un