She showed an immediate apprehension.
"No, no! you mustn't think of that!" she cried. "Promise me you won't."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"As you wish, of course. But if they interfere when we're getting started, surely you'll let me rock them to sleep, won't you?"
"I—I don't know. Something may happen! Oh, I wish you hadn't come!" She was clearly in a panic, a genuine one. It seemed equally clear that her nerves, under the recent strain put upon them, were in a bad way. All this was Shaw's work, and as he realized it Laurie's expression changed so suddenly that the girl cried out: "What is it? What's the matter?"
He answered, still under the influence of the feeling that had shaken him.
"I was just thinking of our friend Bertie and of a little bill he's running up against the future. Sooner or later, and I rather think it will be sooner, Bertie's going to pay that bill."
She did not move, but gave him a look that made him thoughtful. It was an odd, sidelong look, frightened, yet watchful. He remembered that once or twice before she had given him such a look. More than anything else that had happened, this glance chilled him. It was not thus that the woman he loved should look at him.
Suddenly he heard her gasp, and the next instant the silence of the room was broken by another voice, a voice of concentrated rage with a snarl running through it.
"So you're here, are you?" it jerked. "By God, I'm sick of you and of your damned interference!"