Folly shook herself together and vigorously nodded; but Lanyard coolly forestalled whatever words they were that troubled her lips.
"Mr. Mallison is no doubt madame's husband?" he challenged the blonde female. "She had some reason to think she would find him here?"
"Just a minute, Grace." The rusty genteel half of her supporting company, now that he pushed himself forward, proved to possess a rather formidable manner, at once truculent and crafty. "Let me speak for you—"
"You have that right?" Lanyard with pointed civility enquired.
"I've been retained by Mrs. Mallison . . ." The fellow fished a passée professional card from a pocket and thrust it under Lanyard's nose. "I represent her in this case."
"Interesting—but perhaps irrelevant—if true. I mean to say"—Lanyard brushed the card aside, but not before his eye had caught the name Hobart G. Howlin in engraved script followed by the designation Attorney-at-law; and all at once he became as ugly as he had theretofore been bland—"what of it?"
"We were led to believe Mr. Mallison was here—"
"You call yourself a lawyer and pretend that gave you any right to violate the privacy of this household?"
"It sometimes becomes necessary for a wronged wife to take the law into her own hands."
"Mrs. Mallison has been wronged, then? How sad."