She had been waiting for him at the top of the stairs, had been waiting for him, indeed, half the morning, and now at the sound of his key in the lock of the front door, slipping in between Mercury and Fortune, who kept a constant vigil over tenants, peddlers, or intruders, she rushed again to the banisters.
She was flushed, her small mouth wore a pinched expression, and her whole manner indicated suppressed nervousness.
“Well, Ebner!” she exclaimed with a sigh, and in the voice of a woman who had been waiting in vain for a husband who had stayed out all night.
He raised his lean head as he climbed, the morning’s extra sticking out of his overcoat pocket, his eyes studying his wife curiously.
“Well, Em!” he returned, with a cheerful drawl, having a scot-free conscience apropos of the night and being cold sober.
“Ebner!” she exclaimed tragically, as he followed her into the sitting-room.
The flush over her round, apple-like, stupid little face deepened, her small, pinched mouth drooped painfully at the corners; she seemed about to weep, and under the pressure of emotion the skin trembled and showed white under the first crease of her double chin.
She turned by the centre-table and faced him now with the look of a woman about to announce the sudden death of an old friend.
“Ebner!” she repeated painfully, “have you heard the news!”—and with that her small hands covered her eyes.
“Heard? Heard what news? What’s ailin’ you, Em?”