It was heavy, as most of Walbrough's humor was apt to be, Clancy couldn't be sure that it was even in good taste. But it cleared the atmosphere of tears. Her laugh that followed the threat of weeping had been a bit hysterical. Now, as she went up-stairs with Mrs. Walbrough, it was normal. She could climb up as quickly as she could descend.
[XXIV]
Vandervent entered the Walbrough living-room with a jerky stride that testified to his excitement. A dozen questions were crowded against his teeth. But, though the swift motor-ride down-town had not been too brief for him to marshal them in the order of their importance, he forgot them as he met Clancy's eyes.
They should have been penitent eyes; and they were not. They should have been frightened eyes; and they were not. They should have been pleading eyes; and they were not. Instead, they were mischievous, mocking, almost. Also, they were deep, fathomless. Looking into them, the reproach died out in Vandervent's own. The pleading that should have been in Clancy's appeared in Vandervent's, although he undoubtedly was unconscious of the fact.
On the way there, he had been aware of himself as a trained lawyer confronted with a desperate, a possibly tragic situation. Now he was aware of himself only as a man confronting a woman.
He acknowledged the presence of the Walbroughs and of Randall with a carelessness that seemed quite natural to the older people but which made Randall eye the newcomer curiously. In love himself, Randall was quick to suspect its existence in the heart of another man.
"So," said Vandervent, "you weren't joking with me Friday, eh, Miss Deane?"