“Oh, she must be in hell-fire now!” exclaimed Irene, fiercely—“a foretaste of the future.”
“Yes,” he assented-grimly, “I shouldn’t like to be in her shoes.”
Another silence. This time broken by the rattle and sudden drag of a carriage drawing up at the front door. A moment later the faint whirr of the electric bell downstairs.
“Who can that be?” cried Irene, nervously. “Hush, dear! Let me listen.”
She strained her ears, rather overwrought. “It is a woman—if it should be the woman!”
“Oh, nonsense, Renie,” said Gerard, with a man’s contempt for the feminine-fanciful.
The maidservant entered.
“Miss Hart, sir, wishes to speak to you.”
“Miss Hart!” echoed Irene, with a shade of disappointment. Then succeeded quick scorn for the silliness of her fluttering hope, and natural interest in the visitor’s errand. “What can she want?”
Gerard rose from the table and went out into the hall. It was a broad passage, softly carpeted, well warmed, furnished with oak settles and tables, here and there a great indoor plant, all brightly lighted from a great central cluster of electric globes.