“You will regret this.”
His voice was harsh now and beyond control.
“I have regretted much already.”
“Your marriage, I suppose?”
“There is no need, Parker, to indulge in details.”
“This is beyond my patience!”
“And mine, I assure you.”
He turned, and retreated from the attack at the same moment that Madge Ellison reappeared upon the stairs. They passed each other without a word; the woman, clear-eyed and uncompromising; the man gliding close to the wall. Madge Ellison found Betty sitting with closed eyes before the open window, the June sunshine dappling the bosoms of the tall trees in the square with gold.
CHAPTER XL
The month was August, and August at its worst, a month of glare and dust, and an atmosphere more trying to the temper than all the insolent bluster of a bragging March.