Her husband turned upon her and threw out his hands.
"Beatrice!" he cried. "I swear to you——"
"Don't touch me, you filthy creature!" said his Beatrice. "I—I couldn't have thought it. You seemed different from other men!"
"This woman——" Johnson Boller floundered, and then caught Anthony's cold eye. It was an amused eye, too, and the sneer was in it; and Johnson Boller pointed at its owner suddenly and said: "If—if there was a woman here, blame him!"
Beatrice Boller looked Anthony Fry up and down, and her lips curled.
"I do—a little!" she said bitterly. "I've never cared very much for you, Mr. Fry, but—oh, why did you do that? You know as well as I know that Johnson isn't that—that sort of a man! If he wanted to come here and stay with you, couldn't you have been, just for once—decent?"
"Madam!" thundered Anthony Fry, when breath came to him.
There was no music in Beatrice's laugh; an ungreased saw goes through hardwood more sweetly.
"Spare yourself the effort of that righteous rage," she said. "I know your saintly type of man so well, and I've begged Johnson to have nothing to do with you."
"And I give you my word——" Johnson Boller began.