“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Matter? It is a woman you come to meet here then!” She had reached the table, and with a quick pounce picked up a glove which lay there. “That’s what you call your literary work, is it?” she triumphed venomously.
Vance stood silent. His mind was still so charged with ardent and agonizing thoughts that he could not grasp what she was saying. What was she talking about, what was she trying to insinuate, what had she come for? Once more he caught in her face the gleam of animosity he had been conscious of, just below the surface, ever since he had gone with Upton to the ball game.
“Well, haven’t you got anything to say? No, I don’t suppose you have!” Mrs. Tracy taunted him.
“I don’t know what you expect me to say. I don’t know what you’re talking about. That glove is Mrs. Tarrant’s—she left here only a few minutes ago.”
Mrs. Tracy’s sallow face grew sallower. He saw that she was unprepared for the answer and not wholly inclined to believe it. “Mrs. Tarrant—what was she doing here?”
“She came to see me.”
“And what were you doing here?”
“Writing, as you see.”
Mrs. Tracy was silent for a moment, her eyes fixed incredulously on the piled-up pages before her. “I’d like to know who it is lets you in,” she said at length.
“Why, Mrs. Tarrant let me in today, of course.”
“Today! Maybe she did. I’m not talking only about today. It’s not the only day you’ve been here.”
Vance hesitated. He had expected to silence his mother-in-law, and dispel her suspicions, by naming Mrs. Tarrant—one of the few persons who had the undisputed right to come and go in that house. But it would be a different matter, he instantly felt, to let Mrs. Tracy associate Halo’s name with the frequent and clandestine visits of which she evidently suspected him. He was convinced now that she had come on purpose to surprise him, as the result of information received; and he was never ready-witted in emergencies.
“Well, I don’t know’s I need ask who lets you in,” she pursued. “You had plenty of time to have duplicate keys made while I was sick.”
“Certainly I had—if it had occurred to me to do anything so low-down.”
“Low-down? I guess it isn’t that would have prevented you, if you’d been set on coming here, whether it was to steal books or to meet women … maybe both …” she flung back, trembling.
Her agitation had a steadying effect on Vance. “Why not both, as you say?” he rejoined impartially, beginning to gather up his papers. He was sure she was not there without a definite purpose, and it was obviously safer to leave the burden of explanation on her shoulders. After all, he had nothing to reproach himself with but the venial wrong of concealing from Laura Lou that he did his writing at the Willows, and not at the New Hour office. He had been slaving all summer to pay off the money Mrs. Tracy had accepted from Bunty Hayes, and the women had better leave him alone, or he’d know why. … Silently he crammed his papers into their usual storing-place and walked toward the door.
Mrs. Tracy stepped in front of him. “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Home? It’s a place you don’t often trouble. Why don’t you do your writing there—if it’s writing you say you come here for?”
“Because I’m never left alone,” he said, his anger rising again. Mrs. Tracy saw her chance and laughed. “Not with the right woman, you mean?”
Vance halted in front of her. After all, if there was a scene coming—and he saw she was not to be cheated out of it—better have it out here than wait and risk Laura Lou’s being drawn in. “What is it you’re driving at? I can’t answer till I know,” he said sullenly.
“Well, answer me this, then. Who’s the woman you come here to meet?”
The blood rose to his face. “Nonsense. I told you Mrs. Tarrant came here today. You’d better give me her glove and I’ll take it back to her.”
Mrs. Tracy paid no attention to this. She hesitated a moment; then she said: “You haven’t answered my question yet. It’s no good beating round the bush. The neighbours all know about what’s been going on here. Laura Lou’s had a letter warning her. You say, what am I driving at? Well, I’m here to find out what you propose to do, now we’ve caught you. That’s plain enough, isn’t it?” She flung the words out in a kind of shrill monotone, as if she had learned them from someone else and were afraid of not getting them in the right order.
Vance was speechless. His mind had seized on one phrase: “Laura Lou’s had a letter,” and he turned sick with an unformed apprehension. “What nonsense are you talking? What kind of letter? I’ve got nothing to hide and nothing to explain. If you have the letter with you, you’d better let me see it, and if I can find the sneak who wrote it I’ll go and break his neck.”
Mrs. Tracy laughed. “Well, you’ll have some trouble doing that, I guess. But the letter isn’t here—it’s locked up at home. It’s done enough harm to my poor child already—”
“Who wrote it?” Vance interrupted.
“It’s not signed.”
“I thought as much. That kind never is. And you’ve come here to spy on me on the strength of a rag of paper with God knows what anonymous slander on it?” He took his hat up again, and as he did so, his eye lit on the keys which Halo, in leaving, had laid beside him. They were no good to him now; he would never use them again, never come back here without her. He would take them back to Eaglewood this very night, with the glove. …
He put them
