“No! No! I mustn't SPEAK—”
“Don't you DARE!”
Edith and Sibyl began to scream insults at each other simultaneously, fronting each other, their furious faces close. Their voices shrilled and rose and cracked—they screeched. They could be heard over the noise of the phonograph, which was playing a brass-band selection. They could be heard all over the house. They were heard in the kitchen; they could have been heard in the cellar. Neither of them cared for that.
“You told my husband!” screamed Sibyl, bringing her face still closer to Edith's. “You told my husband! This man put THAT in your hands to strike me with! HE did!”
“I'll tell your husband again! I'll tell him everything I know! It's TIME your husband—”
They were swept asunder by a bandaged hand. “Do you want the neighbors in?” Sheridan thundered.
There fell a shocking silence. Frenzied Sibyl saw her husband and his mother in the doorway, and she understood what she had done. She moved slowly toward the door; then suddenly she began to run. She ran into the hall, and through it, and out of the house. Roscoe followed her heavily, his eyes on the ground.
“NOW THEN!” said Sheridan to Lamhorn.
The words were indefinite, but the voice was not. Neither was the vicious gesture of the bandaged hand, which concluded its orbit in the direction of the door in a manner sufficient for the swift dispersal of George and Jackson and several female servants who hovered behind Mrs. Sheridan. They fled lightly.
“Papa, papa!” wailed Mrs. Sheridan. “Look at your hand! You'd oughtn't to been so rough with Edie; you hurt your hand on her shoulder. Look!”