"If you had asked me two months ago, I could have told you it was about that young fool Alan."
"About Wythe? Why, I thought she and Wythe were particularly devoted." If he were sparring for time, there was no hint of it in his manner. It really looked, the housekeeper told herself grimly, as if he had not seen the thing that was directly before his eyes until she had pointed it out to him.
"They were," she answered tartly, "at one time."
"Well, what is the trouble now? A lovers' quarrel?"
It was a guiding principle with Mrs. Timberlake that when her conscience drove her she never looked at her road; and true to this intemperate practice, she plunged now straight ahead. "The trouble is that Alan has been making a fool of himself over Angelica." It was the first time that she had implied the faintest criticism of his wife, and as soon as she had uttered the words, her courage evaporated, and she relapsed into her attitude of caustic reticence. Even her figure, in its rusty black, looked shrunken and huddled.
"So that is it!" His voice was careless and indifferent. "You mean he has been flattered because she has let him read his plays to her?"
"He hasn't known when to stop. If something isn't done, he will go on reading them for ever."
"Well, if Angelica enjoys them?"
"But it makes Mary very unhappy. Can't you see that she is breaking her heart over it?"
"Angelica doesn't know." He might have been stating a fact about one of the belligerent nations.