She rose and lighted it herself, rather reluctantly. She would have preferred that the interrogation she would have to submit to should have been made in the twilight. However, he was not in a mood to be argued with, so she sat down again in the gas-light, with some work in her hand.
“You don’t want that for a few minutes,” said her husband, taking from her hands the stage-cap she was making. “I want you to look at me.”
So she submitted again, with a shrug of the shoulders and a little, contemptuous laugh, which was rather forced, and raised her restless, dark eyes to his steady, blue ones, with an affectation of indifference which did not even irritate him.
“Won’t you sit down? I can’t look at you without cricking my neck while you stand towering above me like that!” said she.
“Thank you. I don’t think I could sit down here quietly with you until I was a little more sure than I am of the footing on which I am here,” returned Harry; and, for the first time, she noticed a nervous movement of his left hand.
He stepped back from her a little, however, so that she could see his face without inconvenience, and she noticed that he looked thin, that he had lost his bright color, and that the steady, set expression of his face made him look much older than when she had left the Grange.
“I don’t understand you! Please let me know clearly what cause of complaint you have against me that makes you behave in such a strange manner to me,” said Annie haughtily.
But she was not quite at ease; this character of culprit was new to her, and it did not sit so well upon her as the equally unaccustomed character of judge seemed to sit upon her husband.
“Who was that man I met outside your door just now?”
“Mr. Aubrey Cooke, a man who was acting at the Regency Theater when I was there. You must have heard me speak of him as one of my oldest friends upon the stage.”