CHAPTER II


The coffee was strong. Mrs. Breckenridge found it soothing to
rasped nerves and tired body, and after the dinner things had been
cleared away she sat on beside the library fire, under the soft
arc of light from the library lamp, sipping the stimulating fluid,
and staring at the snapping and flashing logs.

A sense of merely physical well-being crept through her body, and
for a little time even her active brain was quieter; she forgot
the man now heavily sleeping upstairs, the pretty little tyrant
who had rushed off to dinner at the Chases', and the many
perplexing elements in her own immediate problem. She saw only the
quiet changes in the fire as yellow flame turned to blue--sank,
rose, and sank again.

The house was still. Kitchenward, to be sure, there was a great
deal of cheerful laughter and chatter, as Ellie, sitting heavily
ensconced in the largest rocker, embroidered a centrepiece for her
sister's birthday, Annie read fortunes in the teacups, Alfred
imitated the supercilious manner of a lady who had called that
afternoon upon Mrs. Breckenridge, and Helda, a milk-blond Dane
with pink-rimmed eyes, laughed with infantile indiscrimination at
everything, blushing an agonized scarlet whenever Alfred's
admiring eye met her own.

But the kitchen was not within hearing distance of the quiet room