Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/24

10 the apartment. Geoff heard her voice, strident and severe, from the direction of Margaret's room.

"Cousin Clara is here," he commented to Latham.

However, she was concluding her interview, with Margaret. A door opened.

"All I can say of you is that you're mad, more than mad," the stern voice repeated. "But I knew that before. You can make a match that any girl in her senses would have snapped up four years ago, and you—you persist in "

Cousin Clara hesitated to gather breath for her parting denunciation and incautiously stepped too far outside the door. The bedroom door quietly but firmly closed—it was not slammed, just closed—and the key quietly turned in the lock.

A woman in silk—a gown that indicated an age at least ten years younger than her obvious fifty years—came down the hallway in a rage attained only by one who, possessing much money, has been defied by one with less. Latham, knowing her as an ally, spoke