"He offered to come this evening if you preferred."
"We have other guests to-night," returned Alice coldly. "And I can't be bothered now."
"Bothered?" echoed MacBirney with sarcasm. "Perhaps I had better tell him that."
"By all means, if you want to," she retorted in desperation. "Tell him anything you like."
Her husband rose. "You are amiable this morning."
"No, I am not, I'm sorry to say. I am not quite well--that is the real truth and must be my excuse. Make it for me or not as you like."
MacBirney walked downstairs. After an interminable time, Alice, breathing more freely, heard Kimberly's car moving from the door. When she went down herself she watched narrowly the expression of her husband's face. But he was plainly interested in nothing more serious than Fritzie's account of the country dance. When Alice ventured to ask directly what Kimberly's messages were, he answered that Kimberly had given none. With Fritzie, Alice took a drive after luncheon somewhat easier in mind. Yet she reflected that scarcely twenty-four hours had passed and she already found herself in an atmosphere of suspense and apprehension from which there seemed no escape.
While she was dressing that night, flowers from The Towers' gardens were brought to Cedar Lodge in boxfuls, just as they had regularly been sent the year before--roses for the tables, violets for Alice's rooms, orchids for herself. If she only dared send them back! Not, she knew, that it would make any difference with the sender, but it would at least express her indignation. She still speculated as to whether Kimberly would dare to tell her husband and upon what would happen if he should tell him.
And her little dream of publicity as an antidote! What had become of it already? So far as Kimberly was concerned, she now firmly believed he was ready to publish his attitude toward her to the world. And she shrank with every instinct from the prospective shame and humiliation.
The water about her seemed very deep as she reflected, and she felt singularly helpless. She had never heard of a situation just such as this, never imagined one exactly like it. This man seemed different from every other she had ever conceived of; more frankly brutal than other brutes and more to be dreaded than other men.