Travis drove through the driveway—then he pulled up the mares very gently, got out and felt of their flanks.
“Take them to the barn and rub them off,” he said, “while you wait. And for a half hour bandage their hind legs—I don't want any wind puffs from road work.”
He started into the house. Then he turned and said: “Be here at the door, Jim, by ten o'clock, sharp. I shall make another call after this. Mind you now, ten o'clock, sharp.”
At the library he knocked and walked in.
Mrs. Westmore sat by the fire. She was a small, daintily-made woman, and beautiful even at fifty-five. She had keen, black eyes and nervous, flighty ways. A smile, half cynical, half inviting, lit up continuously her face.
“Richard?” she said, rising and taking his hand.
“Cousin Alethea—I thought you were Alice and I was going to surprise her.”
Mrs. Westmore laughed her metallic little laugh. It was habit. She intended it to be reassuring, but too much of it made one nervous. It was the laugh without the soul in it—the eye open and lighted, but dead. It was a Damascus blade falling from the stricken arm to the stone pavement and not against the ringing steel of an opponent.
“You will guess, of course, where she is,” she said after they were seated.
“No?” from Travis.