Catherine had been moving restlessly to and fro in the drawing-room, glancing at the photographs and pictures, and listening to the murmur of voices that reached her from Parker Steel’s consulting-room. The air of the house seemed oppressive to her, and there was even an unwelcome strangeness about the furniture, as though the inanimate things could conspire against her and repel her sympathies. The environment was the environment of an unfamiliar spirit. The personality of the possessor impresses itself upon the home, and to Catherine there seemed superciliousness and a sense of antagonism in every corner. Her woman’s pride put on the armor of a warlike tenderness. She thought of her children, and was caught thinking of them by Parker Steel.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Murchison.”
“Good-morning.”
“Won’t you sit down?”
There was a questioning pause. Catherine remained standing, her eyes studying the man’s smooth, clever, but soulless face.
“I have come, Dr. Steel, half as a friend—”
The physician’s smile completed the inimical portion of the sentence.
“I cannot but regret,” and he rested his white and manicured hands on the back of a Chippendale chair, “that you have thought fit to interview me, Mrs. Murchison, on such a matter.”
Catherine watched his face as he spoke.
“Of course you realize—”