“She sits brooding too much. Doesn’t even pitch into me when I break things. That’s a bad sign.”
“A bad sign?”
“I’ve noticed they’re all taken like this when they go wrong,” said the girl, speaking as one who had had a long experience of human nature in Intellectual Mansions, S. W. But these words aroused the old lady’s wrath.
“How dare you!” said Mrs. Heywood. “Leave the room at once.”
“I must tell the truth if I died for it,” said Mollie.
The two women were silent for a moment, for just then a voice outside called, “Clare! Clare!” rather impatiently.
“Oh, Lord!” said Mollie. “There’s the master.”
“Clare!” called the voice. “Oh, confound the thing!”
“I suppose he’s lost his stud again,” said Mollie. “He always does on club nights. I’d best be off.”
She took up the tea-tray and left the room hurriedly, just as her master came in. It was Mr. Herbert Heywood, generally described by his neighbors as being “Something in the City”—a man of about thirty, slight, clean-shaven, boyish, good-looking, with nervous movements and extreme irritability. He was in evening clothes with his tie undone.