“Say! have you got Man rounded up yit?” she demanded of her husband. “And how is he, anyhow? That girl ain't got the first idea of what ails him—how anybody with the brains and education she's got can be so thick-headed gits me. Jim told me Man's been packing a bottle or two home with him every trip he's made for the last month—and she don't know a thing about it. I'd like to know what 'n time they learn folks back East, anyhow; to put their eyes and their sense in their pockets, I guess, and go along blind as bats. Where's Kent at? Did he go after him? She won't do nothing till she sees Man—”
At that moment Kent came in, and his disgust needed no words. He answered Mrs. Hawley's inquiring look with a shake of the head.
“I can't do anything with him,” he said morosely. “He's so full he don't know he's got a wife, hardly. You better go and tell her, Mrs. Hawley. Somebody's got to.”
“Oh, my heavens!” Arline clutched at the doorknob for moral support. “I could no more face them yellow eyes of hern when they blaze up—you go tell her yourself, if you want her told. I've got to see about some supper for us. I ain't had a bite since dinner, and Min's off gadding somewheres—” She hurried away, mentally washing her hands of the affair. “Women's got to learn some time what men is,” she soliloquized, “and I guess she ain't no better than any of the rest of us, that she can't learn to take her medicine—but I ain't goin' to be the one to tell her what kinda fellow she's tied to. My stunt'll be helpin' her pick up the pieces and make the best of it after she's told.”
She stopped, just inside the dining room, and listened until she heard Kent cross the hall from the office and open the parlor door. “Gee! It's like a hangin',” she sighed. “If she wasn't so plumb innocent—” She started for the door which opened into the parlor from the dining room, strongly tempted to eavesdrop. She did yield so far as to put her ear to the keyhole, but the silence within impressed her strangely, and she retreated to the kitchen and closed the door tightly behind her as the most practical method of bidding Satan begone.
The silence in the parlor lasted while Kent, standing with his back against the door, faced Val and meditated swiftly upon the manner of his telling.
“Well?” she demanded at last. “I am still waiting to see Manley. I am not quite a child, Mr. Burnett. I know something is the matter, and you—if you have any pity, or any feeling of friendship, you will tell me the truth. Don't you suppose I know that Arline was—lying to me all the time about Manley? You helped her to lie. So did that other man. I waited until I reached town, where I could do something, and now you must tell me the truth. Manley is badly hurt, or he is dead. Tell me which it is, and take me to him.” She spoke fast, as if she was afraid she might not be able to finish, though her voice was even and low, it was also flat and toneless with her effort to seem perfectly calm and self-controlled.
Kent looked at her, forgot all about leading up to the truth by easy stages, as he had intended to do, and gave it to her straight. “He ain't either one,” he said. “He's drunk!”
Val stared at him. “Drunk!” He could see how even her lips shrank from the word. She threw up her head. “That,” she declared icily, “I know to be impossible!”
“Oh, do you? Let me tell you that's never impossible with a man, not when there's whisky handy.”