Bellew's face had changed. Its expression was furtive; his mouth twitched; a furrow had come between his eyes.
“How—are—you?” he said in a thick, muttering voice.
Mrs. Bellew's clear voice answered:
“Now, Jaspar, what is it that you want?”
The little brown devils leaped up again in Jaspar's face.
“You look very pretty to-night!”
His wife's lips curled.
“I'm much the same as I always was,” she said.
A violent shudder shook Bellew. He fixed his eyes on the floor a little beyond her to the left; suddenly he raised them. They were quite lifeless.
“I'm perfectly sober,” he murmured thickly; then with startling quickness his eyes began to sparkle again. He came a step nearer.