(Even such praise as this, the woman's perverted nature craved and prized.) "You won't need to take the money from him in formal payment," she said, "if that's what you want to avoid. If he returns with that sum in his pocket, he will not be long before he--"
A knock at the door interrupted her, and George Dallas entered the room.
He looked weary and dispirited, and, before the customary greetings had been exchanged, Routh and Harriet saw that failure had been the result of experiment. Harriet's eyes sought her husband's face, and read in it the extent of his discomfiture; and the furtive glance she turned on Dallas was full of resentment. But it found no expression in her voice as she asked him commonplace questions about his journey, and busied herself in setting a chair for him by the fire, putting his hat aside, and begging him to take off his overcoat. He complied. As he threw the coat on a chair, he said, with a very moderately successful attempt at pleasantry:
"I have come back richer than I went, Mrs. Routh, by that elegant garment, and no more."
"Bowled out, eh?" asked Routh, taking the cigar from his mouth, and laying it on the mantel-piece.
"Stumped, sir," replied Dallas.
Harriet said nothing.
"That's bad, Dallas."
"Very bad, my dear fellow, but very true. Look here," the young man continued, with earnestness, "I don't know what to do. I don't, upon my soul! I saw my mother--"
"Yes?" said Harriet going up to his side. "Well?