Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/372

 REALIZED, as I looked up and saw Wendy Washburn step into the room, that one of the biggest crosses a woman has to bear is to find herself unable to be indignant with a man when she wants to be indignant with him.

I had every reason to know there was a reckoning ahead for Wendy Washburn, a reckoning which would show him up in colors which he couldn't possibly be proud of. But even while I told myself that I ought to abhor him, I couldn't help feeling wordlessly and foolishly glad that he was safely back in that room.

As I glanced at him the first time, even in that uncertain light, I could see that he looked pale and tired and worried. But it wasn't until I glanced at him a second time that I saw he was carrying a black club-bag in his hand. And I knew, by the quietly triumphant light in his eye, that this bag wasn't empty.

Yet before any one there could change his position or speak to him Alicia Ledwidge had stepped to