"What young woman?"
"Come, come!"
"There isn't any young woman here."
"Tut, tut!"
"There isn't, I tell you."
Mrs. Waddington's direct mind was impatient of this attempt to deceive.
"I will make it worth your while to tell the truth," she said.
Mullett recoiled. The thought that he was being asked to sell his bride on the very day of their wedding revolted him. Not that he would have sold her at any time, of course, but being asked to do so on this day of all days made the thing seem, as Officer Garroway would have said, so peculiarly stark and poignant.
With a frenzied gesture of abhorrence he slammed the window. He switched off the light and with agonised bounds reached the kitchen, where Mrs. Frederick Mullett was standing at the range stirring a welsh rarebit.
"Hello, sweetie!" cooed his bride, looking up. "I'm just fixing the rabbit. The soup's ready."