His fuming humor was heightened by this contretemps, although a great and growing dismay was vaguely shadowed in his eyes, like a thought in the back of the mind, so to speak, too unaccustomed, too preposterous, to find ready expression. He endeavored to calm himself, although he lost no time in prosecuting his investigations. With a hasty hand he touched the electric bell for his wife’s maid and impatiently awaited the response. To his surprise it was not prompt. He stood amidst his incongruous surroundings of gowns, and jewels, and slippers, and laces, and revolving panels of mirrors, frowning heavily. How did it chance that her service should be so dilatory? He placed his forefinger on the button and held it there, and the jangling was still resounding below stairs when the door slowly opened and the maid, with an air of affronted inquiry, presented herself. Her face changed abruptly as she perceived the master of the house, albeit it was like pulling a cloak of bland superserviceableness over her lineaments of impudent protest.
“What do you mean by being so slow to answer this bell?” he thundered, his angry eyes contemptuously regarding her.
“I came as soon as I heard it, sir. I think there must be something wrong with the annunciator.”
“What do you mean by leaving your mistress’s gowns lying around, and her room in this disorder?”
The girl’s beady eyes traveled in bewilderment from one article to another of the turmoil of toilet accessories scattered about the apartment. She had looked for a moment as if she would fire up at the phrase “your mistress,” and she said with a slight emphasis on the title:
“I didn’t know that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney had changed.”
“Where has she gone?”
Once more a dull and genuine bewilderment on the maid’s face.
“I am sure, sir, I don’t know—she didn’t ring for me.”
“I reckon you didn’t answer the bell,” Floyd-Rosney sneered. “She couldn’t wait forever. She hasn’t my patience.”