Parker Steel frowned over the ineptitude of the manœuvre. A dramatic entry might at least have given some dignity to the trick. As it was, he felt like a sneaking boy who had been balked and taken in some none too honorable artifice.
“Betty.”
“Yes, what is it?”
She was in a chair near the window, reading, with her dark hair spread upon her shoulders. Her mouth hardened as she recognized her husband’s voice. It was the very day, and she remembered it, the day of Lady Sophia’s fashionable bazaar when Betty Steel had foreseen the people of Roxton at her feet. She had asked Madge Ellison to bring out the dress that she should have worn. Primrose and leaf-green, it hung across the foot-rail of her bed.
“I want to speak to you, Betty.”
“Is there anything that we can discuss?”
The level tenor of her voice, its unflurried callousness, gave him an impression of obstinate estrangement.
“Betty.”
She did not answer.
“Let me in. If you will only give me a chance to justify myself—”