Her husband found her in a brilliant mood that night at dinner. She looked sleek and handsome, blood in her cheeks and mischief in her eyes. Mrs. Betty at her best could be a very inflammatory and sensuous creature, like a Greek nymph taken from some Bacchic vase.
“The latest news, Parker—the Murchisons have snapped up my cottage on Marley Down.”
“The dickens they have! You don’t appear jealous.”
“No, I have a forgiving heart. The place is like a hermitage. What can the Murchisons want with such a cottage?”
Her husband, cold intellectualist, warmed to her beauty as to true Falernian.
“Am I a crystal gazer?”
“Read me the riddle.”
Parker Steel laughed, and looked at her with a slight loosening of the mouth.
“Riddle-de-dee! You women are always analyzing imaginary motives. Murchison has been looking run to death, lean as an overdriven horse. I don’t blame him for wishing to munch his oats in rustic seclusion.”
Mrs. Betty bubbled over with sparkles of intuition.