"Well—I can't say it. So there! I warn't brought up to talk about sech things. Just you come with me and find out for yourself."
"You have been prying in the servants' wing, I suppose. Do I understand that that is the sort of thing you expect me to do?"
"It ain't the servants' wing—where I've been listenin' and watchin' till I've made sure—out of dooty to myself." She lowered her voice and spoke with a hoarse wheeze. "It's the room at the end of the second turning."
Betty allowed the woman to help her into a wrapper, for her hands were trembling. She followed Miss Trumbull down the hall, hardly believing she was awake, praying that it might be a bad dream. They turned the second corner, and the housekeeper waved her arm dramatically at Harriet's door.
"Very well," said Betty. "Go to your room. I prefer to be alone."
Miss Trumbull retired with evident reluctance. Betty heard a door close ostentatiously, and inferred that her housekeeper was returning to a point of vantage. But she did not care. She felt steeped in horror and disgust. She wished that she never had felt a throb of love. All love seemed vulgar and abominable, a thing to be shunned for ever by any woman who cared to retain her distinction of mind. She would not meet Senator North to-morrow. She did not care if she never saw him again. She would like to go into a convent and not see any man again.
She never ceased to be grateful that she was spared hours of musing that might have burnt permanently into her memory. She had not walked up and down the hall for fifteen minutes before the door at the end of the side corridor opened and Emory came out.
Betty did not hesitate. She advanced at once toward him. He did not recoil, he stood rigid for a moment. Then he said distinctly,—
"We have been married three months. Will you come downstairs for a few moments?"
She followed him down the stair, trembling so violently that she could not clutch the banisters, and fearing she should fall forward upon him. But before she had reached the living-room she had made a desperate effort to control herself. She realized the danger of betraying Harriet's secret before she had made up her mind what course was best, but she was not capable of grappling with any question until the shock was over. Her brain felt stunned.