Hannah spoke:
"We'd welcome it, Mrs. Janney. There's none of us wants any suspicion restin' on 'em."
Delia, the housemaid with the inflamed eye, took it up. She was a newcomer in the household, and in her fright her brogue acquired an unaccustomed richness:
"God knows I was in my room at nine, and not a move out of me till sivin the nixt mornin' and that's to-day."
Mr. Janney, issuing from the telephone closet, here interrupted them. He addressed his wife:
"It's all right. I got Kissam himself. He'll be here on the 5:30."
She answered with a nod and was turning for further instructions to Dixon when Suzanne entered from the balcony. Up to that moment Mr. Janney had forgotten all about his nocturnal vision; now it came back upon him with a shattering impact.
He felt his knees turn to water and his heart sink down to inner, unplumbed depths in his anatomy. He grasped at the back of a chair and for once his manners deserted him, for he dropped into it though his wife was standing.
"What's all this?" said Suzanne, coming to a halt, her glance shifting from her mother to the group of solemn servants. She looked very pretty, her face flushed, the blue tint of her linen dress harmonizing graciously with her pink cheeks and corn-colored hair.
Mrs. Janney explained. As she did so old Sam, his face as gray as his beard, watched his stepdaughter with a furtive eye. Suzanne appeared amazed, quite horror-stricken. She too sank into a chair, and listened, open-mouthed, her feet thrust out before her, the high heels planted on the rug.