"Then why—why—?"
She flung her hands apart, unable to continue. Lulu Averill, moving with the tread of a tigress stalking silently, stole down from the piano to the edge of the carpet. Mildred's eyes as she still faced me were all amber-colored fire. I was like a man waking in the morning from a night of troubled dreams.
Little Mrs. Mountney dragged her laces across both the rugs to confront me face to face, standing beside Mildred.
"Do you know who I am?"
I shook my head.
"I'm Alice Tarporley."
"Oh yes! You were a friend of Vio's before we were married. I've heard her speak of you; but you lived in Denver."
"I went back to Boston only two years ago, when poor Vio was in such trouble because you were—" She cried out, with another wide motion of the arms: "In the name of God, man, what does it all mean?"
But I couldn't go into explanations. I didn't know where to begin.
"Tell me first how Vio is—where she is."