“No, thank you,” said Mr. Wellaway, meekly. “I’ll not. It’s of no importance—no importance whatever.”
VI
“WELL, what do you think!” exclaimed Mr. Wellaway’s host’s wife a few minutes later, as she entered the parlor. “Of all the remarkable things! You would never guess it. Who do you think just called me on the ’phone? That Mrs. Wellaway!”
“No!” exclaimed Mr. Wellaway’s host, and Mr. Wellaway sat straight up on the lounge.
“But she did,” said Sarah. “And she’s hunting that distrusted husband! She telephoned the country club, and the steward told her there had been no strangers there except your guest, so she telephoned here! Imagine the assurance of the—”
She stopped short and stared at Mr. Wellaway. He was going through all the symptoms of intense pain accompanied by loss of intelligence. Then he asked feebly,
“What—what did you tell her?”
“I told her he wasn’t here, and hadn’t been here, of course,” said Mr. Wellaway’s hostess, “and that we did not know any such man, and that I didn’t believe he had come to Westcote at all, and that if I had a husband I couldn’t trust, I’d keep better track of him than she did.”
“Did you—did you tell her all that?” asked Mr. Wellaway with anguish.
They stared at him in dismay.