“Yes,” said Emily. “I’m—I am. And you’re—this is Denis’s mother?”
For a moment they regarded each other in silence, and each with the same thought, almost audible:
“I knew you’d be like this!”
Of course Denis’s mother was like this—a handsome, gray-haired woman, tall, rather angular, with a disdainful nose and a faint, chilly little smile. In spite of her queer, stiff, high-waisted figure, her very unbecoming coiffure, her positively ugly black satin dress, she produced an effect of extraordinary magnificence.
“It’s very odd of Denis to go off that way,” she said.
“He couldn’t help it,” returned Emily hotly. “He had to go.”
“Cecil, my younger son, called in at Denis’s office directly we landed, and he was told that Denis had gone away,” Mrs. Lanier went on, without noticing the interruption. “As soon as we had his cable, we arranged to come. It seems to me very odd that he should run off like that! However”—she paused for a moment, looking carefully at Emily—“perhaps we’d better dine upstairs, alone,” she added, “instead of in the restaurant. I know quite a number of people here.”
With burning cheeks and eyes averted, Emily murmured:
“That would be nicer.”
As they walked together toward the lift, she tried to smile, to talk brightly; but she was terribly hurt—even more hurt than angry.