Again she raised her eyebrows, and there was a flicker of light in her eyes like that which gleams momentarily when a person is on the brink of a great discovery.
The next minute she was running upstairs, while the footsteps of the two fugitives died away in the roar of traffic.
'Theo,' she said to herself, while awaiting an answer to her summons at her own door, 'must be of a very confiding nature. He expects such utter and such blind faith at the hands of others.'
The maid who opened the door was all eagerness to impart to her mistress certain vague details and incomprehensible sounds which had reached her curious ears. She had a thrilling tale of how Captain Huston, 'lookin' that funny about the eyes,' had rung loudly and pushed roughly through the open door; how there had been loud words in the drawing-room, and then a noise like 'movin' a pianer'; how a silence had followed, and, finally, how Mr. Trist (and not Captain Huston, as might have been expected) had left just a minute ago. But the evening milkman was destined, after all, to receive the first and unabridged account of these events. Mrs. Wylie merely said, 'That will do, Mary,' in her unruffled way, and passed on.
She entered the drawing-room, and found Brenda standing near the window, with one hand clasping the folds of the curtain.
Captain Huston was sitting on a low chair beside the fire, weeping gently. His bibulous sobs were the only sound that broke an unpleasant silence. Brenda was engaged in adding to her experiences of men and their ways a further illustration tending towards contempt. Her eyes were dull with pain, but she carried her small head with the usual demure serenity which was naught else but the outcome of a sweet, maidenly pride, as she advanced towards Mrs. Wylie.
'He is quite gentle and tractable now!' she whispered.
Mrs. Wylie took her hand within her fingers, clasping it with a soft protecting strength.
'Is he ... tipsy?'
'No!' answered Brenda, with a peculiar catch in her breath; 'he is only stupefied.'