“He gave him a threshing, ma’am,” I heard Hilton’s voice saying, far away, as though it came to me over a long-distance telephone on a wet night.
I sat rigid as we mounted American Hill. I sat rigid as we swerved in through the ridiculous manor-like gate and up the winding drive and in under the ugly new porte-cochère. I didn’t even wait for Poppsy as I got out of the car. I didn’t even speak to Tokudo as he ran mincingly to take my things. I walked straight to the breakfast-room where I saw my husband sitting at the end of the oblong white table, stirring a cup of coffee with a spoon.
“Where’s Dinkie?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low but not quite succeeding.
Duncan looked up at me with a coldly meditative eye. 333
“Where he usually is at this time of day,” he finally answered.
“Where?” I repeated.
“At school, of course,” admitted my husband as he reached out for a piece of buttered toast. He was making a pretense at being very tranquil-minded. But his hand, I noticed, wasn’t so steady as it might have been.
“Is he all right?” I demanded, with my voice rising in spite of myself.
“Considerably better, I imagine, than he has been for some time,” was the deliberate answer from the man with the bloodshot eyes at the end of the table.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. And any one of intelligence, I suppose, could see I was making that question a challenge.