As she rose, Hazel rose too, her face full of suspicious concern.
“It’s not another woman, is it, Berny?” she almost whispered.
Berny had told so many lies that she did not bother about a few more. Moreover, she was determined not to let her sisters know about Rose Cannon—not yet, anyway.
“No,” she said with short scorn, turning to pick up her feather boa. “Of course it’s not. He’s not that kind of a man. He’s too much of a sissy. Another woman! I’d like to tell him that.”
She gave a sardonic laugh and turned to the glass, disposing her boa becomingly and adjusting her hat. Hannah, shaking herself loose from the encircling embrace of the cutting table, rose too, exclaiming,
“Don’t go yet. You must tell us more of this. I’ve not heard anything for years that’s upset me so. If Dominick’s not in love with somebody else, what’s got into him? Why doesn’t he care for you any more? A man doesn’t stop loving his wife for no cause whatever. It isn’t in human nature.”
“Well, it’s in Dominick’s nature,” said Dominick’s wife, pulling on her gloves. “Maybe that isn’t human nature, but it’s the nature of the man I’m married to and that’s all that concerns me. Remember, you’re not to say a word about this. It’s all a secret.”
“Why should we talk about it?” said the practical Hazel. “It’s bad enough to have had it happen. You don’t want to go round gossiping about a member of your family getting thrown down.”
To their pressing invitations to remain longer, Berny was deaf. She had said her say and wanted to go. The interview had undoubtedly eased her of some of the choking exasperation that had followed Mrs. Ryan’s cut; and it was a source of comfort to think that she had now broken the ice and could continue to come and pour out her wrongs and sorrows into the ever-attentive ears of her sisters. But now she wanted to get away from them, from their penetrative questions, and their frank curiosity, the curiosity of normal, healthy-minded women, whose lives had lacked the change and color of which hers had been full. She cut her good-bys short and left them to their own distracted speculations, staring blankly at each other, amid the scattered millinery of the disordered room.
When she reached home, she found on the hall table a note which the Chinaman told her had been left by a messenger. It was from Bill Cannon and contained but a few lines. These, of a businesslike brevity, expressed the writer’s desire to see her again, and politely suggested that, if she could come to his office on any one of the three specified afternoons, between the hours of two and four, he would be deeply honored and obliged.