She fought with her husband until it was too late for her to get away. Charity's card came in while they were still wrangling. Kedzie announced that she was not at home. Jim told the servant, “Wait!” and gave Kedzie a look that she rather enjoyed. It was what they call a caveman look. She felt that he already had his hands in her hair and was dragging her across the floor bumpitty-bump. It made her scalp creep deliciously. She was rather tempted to goad him on to action. It would have a movie thrill.
But the look faded from Jim's eye and the blaze of wrath dulled to a gray contempt. She was afraid that he might call her what she had once overheard Pet Bettany call her—“A common little mucker.” That sort of contempt seared like a splash of vitriol.
Kedzie, like Zada, was a self-made lady and she wanted to conceal the authorship from the great-grandmother-built ladies she encountered.
She pouted a moment, then she said to the servant, “We'll see her.” She turned to Jim. “Come along. I'll go and pet your old cat and get her off my chest.”
CHAPTER XIII
Jim thudded dismally along in her wake. Charity was in the drawing-room wearing her politest face. She could tell from Kedzie's very pose that she was as welcome as a submarine.
Kedzie said, “Awfully decent of you to come,” and gave her a handful of cold, limp fingers.
Charity politely pretended that she had called unexpectedly and that she was in dire need of Kedzie's aid. She made herself unwittingly ridiculous in the eyes of Kedzie, who knew and despised her motive, not appreciating at all the consideration Charity was trying to show.