“Good Lord!” exclaimed Mr. Priestley.
“What the devil!” demanded Mr. Priestley, descending abruptly.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” prophesied Mr. Priestley, and relapsed into awed silence.
“What is it?” almost screamed Laura, dancing in her chair with impatience.
Mr. Priestley continued to run a hectic eye over the lurid columns and spoke no word. Lost to the decencies, Laura jumped up and leaned openly on his shoulder, reading over it with incredulous eyes.
Suddenly she turned, ran a few steps towards the centre of the room, halted there for a moment with heaving shoulders, her back towards her startled companion, then buried her face in her hands and fled out of the room, uttering startling sounds. Mr. Priestley, hurrying in her wake, was just in time to see her disappearing into the bedroom.
He stood irresolutely at the foot of the stairs, much disconcerted; not very much experience in the art of soothing feminine emotion had come his way. Did one leave them alone, or did one try and calm them down? Mr. Priestley was much tempted to leave this one alone, but the memory of those pathetically heaving shoulders was too much for him. Heroically he mounted, on soothing bent.
Laura was lying on her face in the middle of the bed, her whole frame shaking with the most heartrending convulsions. Her face was buried in the pillow, but she waved a feeble hand towards the door as Mr. Priestley entered, as if bidding him leave her alone with her grief. Though terribly tempted to take her at her gesture Mr. Priestley forced himself forward: He progressed in a tentative way as far as the bed and stood looking down on its quivering burden.
“Er—Laura!” he hazarded, very uncomfortably.
The hand gestured again. “Go away!” beseeched a stifled voice from the depths of the pillow.