"While all this talk of reputations is going on," said Mary, "what about mine?"
Anthony Fry's tension snapped. Johnson Boller, it seemed, was of no mind to relinquish his rare fury so easily, for he stood with his fists clenched and trembled a little even now and his color was no lighter than scarlet; but Anthony turned and bowed almost humbly.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Mary," he said bitterly.
"Miss Mary!" echoed Boller. "You know her, hey?"
"She told me to call her Mary," Anthony said stiffly.
"When? When you hired her for this job?" Johnson Boller persisted, although quite weakly.
"When I discovered—not half an hour back—that she was—er—what she is," Anthony said coldly. "And let that be an end to your comments, please. You saw me meet this young woman for the first time, as you will know when you recover your senses. You know for what purpose and under what misapprehension I brought her to this apartment. Don't make a bad matter worse by injecting your personal brand of asininity."
He turned his back on Johnson Boller and walked away.
Johnson Boller, however, turned his whole attention to Mary, perched on the arm of a chair, distressed enough but self-contained, pretty as a picture. And slowly reason climbed upon her throne again in Johnson Boller's brain, possessed though it was by Beatrice, loveliest of wives.
He smiled suddenly, because Beatrice in far-off Montreal would never know; he even grinned after a few seconds; and then, the enormity of the joke on Anthony Fry overcoming him suddenly, Johnson Boller opened his mouth and laughed—not a mere, decent expression of mirth, but a roar which suggested a wild bull in acute agony.