“Mrs. Errh’m!” called Mr. Priestley. “I’ve changed my mind. We’ll have that bedroom of yours after all. Will you take some hot water along there, please?”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir, certainly, sir,” floated down from above.
Laura flung the door to and stared at this new version of Mr. Priestley. It was as if she were trying to look through his head to see the horns which must be sprouting there, and his boots for the cloven hoofs which must be hidden inside them. Her face grew interestingly crimson.
“How—how dare you?” she gasped. “Are you a complete cad?”
Mr. Priestley grew crimson also. “What on earth’s the matter?” he snapped. “You’re not making a fuss about a little thing like that, surely? You, of all people!”
Laura continued to gasp, this time speechlessly.
“If it’s your reputation you’re thinking of,” nastily continued Mr. Priestley, who really was extremely annoyed, “it’s a pity you didn’t think of it long ago, before you took to thieving. Reputation, indeed! Fine reputation you’ve got, haven’t you? The cleverest woman thief in the world, indeed!” It must be admitted that there were no excuses for Mr. Priestley, but no man likes being called a cad, and Mr. Priestley’s horizon at that moment was bound with red; moreover, he was in an acute state of nerves. He had, you must remember, killed a man; and a thing like that is liable to upset the most equable of temperaments.
Laura opened her mouth, but no words came. Perhaps because there were none to come.
“But I see through you by this time,” Mr. Priestley went on, lashing himself as he went. “You took me in at first with your pathetic story about stolen letters, but you don’t take me in again, young woman! You’re a hypocrite, and that’s the long and the short of it. At one moment butter won’t melt in your mouth, at the next you’re tricking me into shooting a perfectly innocent man. It’s my belief that you knew the whole time that that revolver was loaded. And if you think,” concluded Mr. Priestley with incredible ferocity, “that I’m going to let your hypocritical pretences of morality and reputation jeopardise my safety, you’re making a very large mistake, young woman!”
It has been said that only once in her life had Dora Howard met her match, and the consequences were drastic. The same important event had now happened to Laura, and the consequences were designed to be, in their own way, no less drastic. For the moment, with every light-hearted word of her own recoiling heavily against her and completely bereft of all argument or reasonable basis of expostulation, she could do nothing but stand, very white-faced now instead of crimson, and gasp in silence.