Before McGovern could answer a vigorous pressure flung the door open and a young man stepped in followed by a young woman in a fur coat and smart toque.
“Never thought you’d shut the door in my face, Mac!” said the young man reproachfully. “We’ve got to have some coffee and sandwiches. Hello, Mrs. Mac: how’s everything?”
The young woman, blinking in the light, was walking toward the fireplace when she became aware that McGovern and his wife had been entertaining other guests. She paused and stared, her gaze passing slowly from Cummings to Grace. Her companion, finding that McGovern and his wife were receiving coldly his voluble expressions of regard, now first caught sight of the two figures across the room.
“Hello-o-o!” he exclaimed. “Look who’s here!”
“Why, Jimmie, is that you?” said Cummings with a gulp.
“I call it some night! And Mac, the old pirate, didn’t want to let me in!”
The McGoverns were hastily retiring toward the kitchen, Mac tiptoeing as though leaving a death chamber. The weight of his grievous error was upon him; never before had he precipitated a wife upon a husband in so disturbing a fashion.
Grace was watching the young woman, who pulled a chair away from the table that still bore evidences of the recent repast and sank into it. She was tall and slender and the light struck gold in her hair. Feeling perhaps that Grace’s eyes were upon her, she bent and plucked a raveling, real or imaginary, from the skirt of her coat. She unbottoned her coat and drew off her gloves with elaborate care.
Her companion stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his overcoat, grinning. An old-fashioned clock on the mantel began to strike to the accompaniment of queer raspings of its mechanism. The hands indicated the hour as ten but in the manner of its kind the hammer within pounded out twelve. There was a suggestion of insolence in the protracted thumping of the bell. As the last torturing sound was dying Grace turned her head slightly to look at Cummings, who was staring blankly at the lady in the fur coat.
“What a funny clock!” Atwood remarked with the jubilant tone of one who has made a discovery of great value to mankind.