“Will she, miss?” Anna’s tone expressed doubt. She lifted the tray, thought a moment, replaced it, and walked to Polly’s side. “Do you think Miss Judith’s quite happy in her marriage?”
“What!” Polly stared at her questioner in blank astonishment “She and her husband are ideally happy.”
“Are they, miss?” Anna shook a puzzled head, then bent until her lips almost touched Polly’s ear. “Major Richards came home from Mr. Austin’s funeral just in time for dinner, and went out immediately after—and—he didn’t return until about six this morning.”
“How do you know?” demanded Polly. Her voice was sharp.
“I let him in, miss.” Anna picked up the tray and poised for flight. “The Major said he had mislaid his latchkey.”
Polly regarded the waitress as she crossed the room, with critical eyes. In spite of the heavy glass-topped tray, Anna walked with ease, her fine upright carriage had frequently been commented upon admiringly by Mrs. Hale’s dinner guests.
Polly turned back to her typewriter with renewed distaste. A glance at her watch showed that it was after one o’clock. For some minutes she sat in indecision. Then, tossing her papers into the drawer, she covered her machine and went home.
She had been gone a bare ten minutes when the door opened and Robert Hale stepped into the den. On catching sight of the empty chair in front of the typewriter, he frowned, and, going over to the machine, lifted its leather cover. A glance at its empty roll brought a shrug of the shoulders, which was repeated when he looked at his watch. Without sitting down he scanned the furniture and the scrap basket finally caught his eye.
Dropping into Polly’s chair, he picked up the basket and examined the pieces of torn envelopes, then the ball of paper claimed his attention and he smoothed it out. He read the typewritten words listlessly at first, then with slowly increasing interest, and finally folded the sheet with care and slipped it inside his pocket. Five minutes later he was smoking placidly in his favorite chair in the library.
Judith’s lack of appetite which had so distressed Anna, the waitress, persisted, and during luncheon she partook of only one hot roll and sipped a cup of tea. Mrs. Hale, loquacious as ever, paid no attention to the curt responses of both her husband and daughter, and carried on a lengthy conversation, much to her own satisfaction and the secret enjoyment of Maud, the parlor maid, who, in Anna’s absence, was serving luncheon unaided.