"Now this morning, do you know why mother wanted to get us all out of the house?" Antonia continued.
Pearl felt tempted to say that Mrs. Conway always wanted to get her out of the house, but she merely shook her head, and Antonia went on, "Because she is going to have an interview with my father."
"With your father?" Pearl sprang to her feet. "Are you sure?"
Antonia nodded.
"When mother is going to see father she looks the way I feel as if I looked when I'm going to the dentist—don't you know, you say to yourself, 'I wouldn't think twice about this if I were brave'—and then you think about it all the time. You know, mother doesn't think she tells us everything, but she really does, except about my father. And so, you see, if it's something about my father I always know, because mother's worried without saying why."
This reasoning seemed sound to Pearl. She felt that in order to fulfill Anthony's instructions she must go to Mrs. Conway's assistance at once. She did not like to burst in upon them from the open windows of the sitting-room, and so ran round the house to the front door. A small, shabby automobile was standing in the circle, and as Pearl bounded up the steps a man came out quickly and got into it—a pale man, with long white hands and something of Durland's birdlike quality. She saw that she was too late. She went into the sitting-room.
Mrs. Conway was standing in the middle of the room, supporting one elbow in one hand and two fingers of the other resting against her chin. She looked so white that every grain of rouge seemed to stand out—away from her cheeks. She turned her eyes coldly upon Pearl.
"Well?" she said.
Pearl had not thought at all what she was going to say, and blurted out, "Oh, Mrs. Conway, I thought you might need me! I thought I could help you if—Mr. Wood said——"
Edna, rather to her own surprise, suddenly lost her temper.