“Is this better?” said I, trying to look the thoughts I had no difficulty in getting to the fore whenever my eyes were on her.
Her smile rewarded me. But it disappeared, gave place to a look of nervous alarm, of terror even, at the rustling, or, rather, bustling, of skirts in the hall—there was war in the very sound, and I felt it. Mrs. Ellersly appeared, bearing her husband as a dejected trailer invisibly but firmly coupled. She acknowledged my salutation with a stiff-necked nod, ignored my extended hand. I saw that she wished to impress upon me that she was a very grand lady indeed; but, while my ideas of what constitutes a lady were at that time somewhat befogged by my snobbishness, she failed dismally. She looked just what she was—a mean, bad-tempered woman, in a towering rage.
“You have forced me, Mr. Blacklock,” said she, and then I knew for just what purpose that voice of hers was best adapted—“to say to you what I should have preferred to write. Mr. Ellersly has had brought to his ears matters in connection with your private life that make it imperative that you discontinue your calls here.”
“My private life, ma'am?” I repeated. “I was not aware that I had a private life.”
“Anita, leave us alone with Mr. Blacklock,” commanded her mother.
The girl hesitated, bent her head, and with a cowed look went slowly toward the door. There she paused, and, with what seemed a great effort, lifted her head and gazed at me. How I ever came rightly to interpret her look I don't know, but I said: “Miss Ellersly, I've the right to insist that you stay.” I saw she was going to obey me, and before Mrs. Ellersly could repeat her order I said: “Now, madam, if any one accuses me of having done anything that would cause you to exclude a man from your house, I am ready for the liar and his lie.”
As I spoke I was searching the weak, bad old face of her husband for an explanation. Their pretense of outraged morality I rejected at once—it was absurd. Neither up town nor down, nor anywhere else, had I done anything that any one could regard as a breach of the code of a man of the world. Then, reasoned I, they must have found some one else to help them out of their financial troubles—some one who, perhaps, has made this insult to me the price, or part of the price, of his generosity. Who? Who hates me? In instant answer, up before my mind flashed a picture of Tom Langdon and Sam Ellersly arm in arm entering Lewis' office. Tom Langdon wishes to marry her; and her parents wish it, too; he is the man she was confessing to me about—these were my swift conclusions.
“We do not care to discuss the matter, sir,” Mrs. Ellersly was replying, her tone indicating that it was not fit to discuss. And this was the woman I had hardly been able to treat civilly, so nauseating were her fawnings and flatterings!
“So!” I said, ignoring her and opening my batteries full upon the old man. “You are taking orders from Mowbray Langdon now. Why?”
As I spoke, I was conscious that there had been some change in Anita. I looked at her. With startled eyes and lips apart, she was advancing toward me.