However, it was his business to fathom all this mystery at once. An idealist was a blind ass—look at Perry!
Penn did not rest well that first night after the problem play, nor for many nights to come.
One morning a question of law came up at the office that made it expedient that one of the firm should go at once to Washington to consult a supreme authority, and Robert was sent, that he might have the benefit of even that small change of scene. He rushed home to throw a few things into a bag and kiss his wife and Betty good-by. He opened the front door with his latchkey as usual, and as usual called out:
“Helen, where are you?”
There was a low cry, the shuffle of feet across a hardwood floor, the bang of a door closed quickly, and then in a voice toned to sudden insouciance and overdoing it:
“Here I am, Rob, in the library.”
He stood frozen stiff for an instant, as his legal experience whispered to him all the possibilities hidden in those few sounds. The main thing was to keep his head! He went to the library and found Helen sitting alone in his own especial chair, peacefully reading Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” as he was quick to notice as he passed behind her.
Although her attitude was one of rather sleepy repose, there were signs of a hasty rearrangement of the mise en scène, which corroborated the aural evidence which reached him in the hall. Near the door to the reception room was a piece of paper; he slipped on a round “Carteret” pencil as he went to his desk in a silence that he felt that he could not break, without also breaking a few other things.
Helen sat watching him in surprise—not an altogether genuine surprise, he thought, after one glance—thank Heaven, he was an expert in moral turpitudes and sinuosities—the woman did not live who could deceive him!
“Did you forget something, Rob? Why didn’t you telephone? I could have sent it to you,” she asked, simply. Ah, that accursed simplicity! Well, she would find that he was not simple, that was one sure thing.