"Umph!" said his host.
"And so I'm let out of it!" Mr. Boller chuckled on. "We'll just scoot along to the little dove-cote, old vinegar-face, and see how she looks after all this time. I can get my things later on. Well—I'm sorry to leave you with the problem on your hands, you know."
"Don't let it disturb you!" Anthony snapped.
"But at that, you know, fate's doing the kind, just thing by snatching me out," Mr. Boller concluded earnestly and virtuously. "It wasn't my muddle in the first place, and somehow I feel that you haven't acted just on the level with me about any of it."
Anthony's mouth opened to protest. Yet he did not protest. Instead, he jumped, just as one jumps at the unexpected explosion of a fire-cracker—for down the corridor a scream, shrill and sharp, echoed suddenly.
And after the scream came a long, choking gasp, so that even Wilkins appeared in the doorway and Johnson Boller darted forward to learn what had overtaken his only darling. He was spared the trouble of going down the corridor, however. Even as he darted forward, Beatrice had rejoined them; and having looked at her just once Johnson Boller stood in his tracks, rooted to the floor!
Because Beatrice, the lovely, the loving, Beatrice of the melting eyes and the high color, had left them. The lady in the doorway was white as the driven snow and breathing in a queer, strangling way; and whatever her eyes may have expressed, melting love for Johnson Boller was not included.
For this unpleasant condition the hat in her hand seemed largely responsible. It was a pretty little hat, expensively simple, but it was the hat of a lady!
And, looking from it to Johnson Boller, Beatrice finally managed:
"This—this! This hat!"