Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/158

 "What else, Mr. Stanway, have you come to let us hear?"

"Let you hear?" said Stanway.

Marjorie stood up. She felt little; and she wished for height. She had not felt small in the chair; but now she longed for tallness and strength, not perhaps to put her hands on him and show him out, but at least to stand, more dignified, before him and not so much shorter, as he too got to his feet.

"We know what you have come to tell us, Mr. Stanway," she said, resorting again to a phrase she had prepared. "We knew even that you were coming this afternoon to tell us, That is why my mother is not seeing you; I have undertaken to meet you in her place. But to save you trouble, please believe me that I know everything you do. I am quite sure."

She looked up at him directly and with steady eyes and tight-shut lips and with burning face. For an instant, as he gazed down at her, a wave of fright swept her. Suppose Rinderfeld were wrong; suppose this man did not know, or, at least, had not known, what had she told him? What had she put into his hands? But she continued to look into his small, crafty eyes and her terror passed. Finish his story for him—and finish him, Rinderfeld had said; and so she went through with it.

"I mean, particularly, about George Russell and about the Mrs. Russell who used to be his wife, Mr. Stanway," she said in a low voice but distinctly, "and the particular number on Clearedge Street which you have in mind. We do not know all we would like about your own connection with Russell; if you want to tell us about that, we will be very glad to hear you. Other-