Ten minutes later the door between the two rooms opened. Mrs. Smithers did not so much as look at Barclay, her only intimation that she recognized his passing being a sudden stiffening of her long back. Barclay bowed to her, still very calm and unchallenging, and went out.
Mrs. Smithers waited until she heard the crunch of wheels fade along the drive, and then sailed indignantly into the next room. She was trembling a little and desperately anxious to appear merely angry.
"I can't think how you did it, Sigrid. There was Mrs. Compton wanting to see you, and instead you talked and talked to that nasty half-caste. I was ashamed—I was really—"
She stopped, at the end of artificial fury, but still trembling. Sigrid stood by her writing-table. A long beam of evening sunshine rested lightly and lovingly on her. In her delicate shaded gown, her slender body tensely still and living, she looked like a huge butterfly, wings half-spread, poised for flight. Her head was bent a little, and she still held Barclay's letter in her hands.
"I'm sorry, Smithy. It was important. It seems there's a kind of matrimonial epidemic in Gaya. He has asked me to marry him."
Mrs. Smithers burst into loud and uncontrolled laughter.
"I shouldn't have thought it would have taken you all that time to give him his answer—the creature——"
"I didn't give him an answer. I didn't know—I've got to think things over."
"Sigrid——"
It grew very still. Mrs. Smithers's withered hands fluttered up to her breast and rested there in a helpless weakness. Sigrid began to tear the letter across and across.