He paused a dramatic moment, his back to it, facing us.
I stopped reading, in pretended astonishment.
"Well, Penton?" acted Hildreth languidly....
The look of defeat and bewilderment on the husband's face would have
been comic if it had not been pitiable.
I rose, laying the book down carefully.
"I think I'll go now, Hildreth ... you wish to see Penton alone." I put
all the calm casual deference in my voice possible. I started to walk
easily to the door.
"No! stop! I wish you to stay here, John Gregory ... since you've got
yourself into this--"
"I'd like to know what you mean by 'got yourself into this'?"
"Oh, Gregory, let's not talk nonsense any longer."
"You don't believe what I assured you this morning?"
"Johnnie, it's not human ... I can't make myself, and I've tried and
tried, God knows!"
"I'd like to know, for my part, just what you mean, Penton Baxter,
spying on me this way--bursting in on poor Johnnie Gregory and me like a
maniac, while we were only reading poetry together."
"--reading poetry together!" he echoed bitterly, almost collapsing, as
he went into a chair.
Again I tried to make my exit.
"Johnnie, I want you to stay. I want to have all this out right here and
now," snapped Baxter decisively.
"Very well ... if you put it that way."
"--a nice way to treat your guest," Hildreth interposed, "the way you've
been raving about him, too.
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