In turning to make her speech more impressive and to give Miss Crewe a broadside, as it were, of her displeasure, she had a full view of the verandah, and was in the nick of time to see a swarthy, black-whiskered face, topped by a soft, black felt hat, slowly raised over the verandah rail. She panted twice from terror’s cold shock; then screamed with all her might. The apparition disappeared.
“Eh? What?” Dr. Wells looked up, jerkily, from his cards. Howard had half risen, from habit, at the feminine cry of distress. The Judge, peering over his pince-nez, offered a practical explanation.
“A beetle? The summer bugs do bite.”
“Mamma! I wish you wouldn’t shriek when there’s no need.”
Mrs. Witherby was angry now as well as frightened. She gestured frantically and gasped.
“There—there! I saw him! Oh! the terrible man! Oh, quick—catch him—a man!”
She continued to point and wave and gasp at such a rate, that Judge Giffen and Wilton Howard, concealing their mirth as best they could, went to the verandah and made a perfunctory investigation. The movement of their shoulders suggested that they were not looking over the verandah rail so much as laughing over it. Miss Crewe gave herself up to an almost hysterical hilarity.
“You have so much imagination, Aunt Emma.”
Dr. Wells cackled with delight, “Te-he-he! The cry of the eternal feminine—‘Catch him! Catch the man!’ Te-he-he.”
“You must have seen him!” Mrs. Witherby’s face was crimson with fury. She would have liked to tear out all the mocking eyes now regarding her.