"What about your signalling that yacht just now?"
It was shot at a venture; she had no real knowledge that the lighted window had been that of Mrs. Standish's bedroom; but it was just possible, and she chanced it, and it told, though she was not yet to know that with any certainty.
"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Standish hesitated with a hand on the door-knob.
"You know well enough. I saw what I saw. People don't do things like that unless there's something secret about it, something they don't want known."
"I think you must be out of your head," the woman responded with crushing hauteur. "I haven't the slightest notion what you mean, and you needn't trouble to enlighten me. I don't in the least care. But you may sleep on this--that your insolence shall be properly rewarded as soon as I can see my aunt in the morning. Good night."
With a defiant sniff that covered a spirit cringing in consternation, Sally turned her back and threw herself angrily into a chair. But the sound that she had expected of the door closing did not come, and after a minute she looked round to find Mrs. Standish still at pause upon the threshold.
"Oh," said Sally, with an impertinent assumption of remedying an oversight, "good night, I'm sure!"
Instead of audible reply, the woman shut the door and turned back to the middle of the room.
"I don't wish to be unjust," she said quietly.
"I am quick-tempered, just as you are, but I always try to be fair in the end. Perhaps I was unpleasant and too exacting just now; but, you must admit, I really know little or nothing about you, and have every right to watch you closely."