"Well, I daresay Johnson has put the newspapers in their place by this time," Roger said, ignoring her embarrassment. "I'll have a look, to save time. You'll come when you're ready? I've a suggestion to make that I think you'll like."
He spoke pleasantly, not at all as if he had a grudge against his wife. Many women would have been satisfied with such a manner; but Beverley was not of the "many women," and Roger had never been like other, ordinary husbands. For the first morning since that day in Chicago when he had asked her to be his wife, they had not kissed.
"It will always be like this from now on," she told herself. "I hope I shall die. I can't live without his love, and go on seeing him every day!"
Roger had not mentioned Clo, and Beverley held her peace. She thought it would be best to wait and see what the newspapers said. At the end of ten minutes, as the breakfast tray was being placed on the lace table cover, she strolled into the boudoir. Roger hardly looked up, feigning to be deeply interested in his paper. On other mornings—the servant being out of the room—he would have sprung from his chair to place hers, and perhaps to kiss the long braid of her golden brown hair, or the back of her white neck as it showed under her fetching little cap.
"Any exciting news?" she asked in a casual tone, as she sat down—the sort of tone which other wives perhaps use to other husbands.
"Nothing that interests us specially," Roger answered. "A rather sordid murder, at a third-rate hotel; there's a mystery, of course."
"What hotel?" Beverley ventured to ask, pouring coffee with a hand that would shake.
"One I never heard of before. Let me see, what's the name? Oh, the 'Westmorland.' You'll not be interested. Let's get to the thing I want to talk about. Can you guess what it is?"
Beverley shook her head. "I am a bad guesser."
"It's partly about your pearls. By the by, was the pearl-stringer satisfactory?"