The question being purely rhetorical, I allowed Martyn to supply his own answer to it.
“The husband has come.”
“Good Lord! The Harter husband?” said Sallie. I could have sworn that she was quite delighted at this new dramatic factor in the case.
So was Martyn.
“It was the most extraordinary bit of luck, coming in for it. You know I went down on the machine to fetch her, to those awful rooms in Queen Street. She opened the door to me herself. She’d no hat on, and evidently hadn’t meant to come. So I told her about the rehearsal and suggested taking her along.”
“Did she see you in the hall or in the sitting room?” Sallie inquired. One could see she wanted to be able to visualize the whole thing.
“There wouldn’t have been room for both of us in the wretched little entrance passage. She asked me into the dining room, or, rather, she said, ‘You can go in if you want to,’ and I did go in. The room smelt of mutton chop and down draughts. There was a tray on the table with greasy plates and things and two ghastly affairs in frames, on the walls—some kids feeding swans and a nun trailing along past an open door and looking at a woman in her petticoat bodice undressing a small child on a table. It was all frightfully characteristic.”
Sallie nodded vehemently.
“I know. A sort of arrangement of brackets and shelves and a looking-glass over the mantelpiece, I suppose, and pink paper in the grate.”
“More or less that. And Mrs. Harter stood in the middle of it looking rather like Cassandra. She simply asked if I’d wait while she finished a bit of ironing. I said I would, and she carried on at the other end of the table from the tin tray and the greasy plates. I think she was ironing a blouse—something white, anyhow.”