When at last Joe's key was heard in the door, both women leaned slowly forward, as though the strain were unbearable. And then as Joe came into the hall, Fanny said suddenly, sharp and clear:
"No, I won't keep quiet! Joe has got to be told of this!" Ethel wheeled on her:
"How odious!"
"I can't help it—he's my friend!"
And the next moment, with Joe in the room, both women were talking to him at once—angrily, incoherently, almost shoving each other away. But only for a moment. It was too disgusting! Ethel left off and stood rigid there, while Fanny talked on rapidly. She was speaking of how Ethel had cut off Joe from Amy's friends. Ethel heard only bits of this, for it all seemed so confused and unreal. But she noticed how nervously tired he looked, all keyed up from his day at the office. She remembered that his partner was out of town on business, that Joe had been running the office alone. "He will be hard to manage," she thought. He interrupted Fanny in a sharp, excitable tone.
"What's it all about?" he asked.
"It's time you saw where you stand, Joe Lanier. Look at this girl. I don't blame her, God knows. Look how young she is, and then look at yourself. Here, take a look at yourself in that mirror. Are you still young? Can't you see the lines, the gray hairs, Joe? They're coming—oh, they're coming! Can you supply all the love she wants?"
"Fanny?" he snapped out her name in so ugly a voice that she lost no time. She shoved those papers into his hands and began to tell him what they were. But Joe refused to read them and grew each moment angrier.
"Joe!" cried Fanny sharply. "When you brought Dwight to dinner here, he met your wife as though for the first time. Did you know they had been friends for months?" And at his startled look, she added, "If you didn't, you'd better read all this!" There fell a sudden silence.
"I'll explain everything—when we're alone," Ethel managed to put in.
How queer and thick her own voice sounded.