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Rastall-Retford, impressed, issued the invitation. And now Peter was being punished for his deceit. Nemesis may not be an Alfred Shrubb, but give her time and she gets there. It was towards the middle of the second week of his visit that Eve, coming into the drawing-room before dinner, found Peter standing in front of the fire. They had not been alone together for several days. "Well?" said he.
She felt she could not struggle through a bridge night. On the occasions when she was in one of her dangerous moods, Mrs. Rastall-Retford sometimes chose rest as a cure, sometimes relaxation. Rest meant that she retired to her room immediately after dinner, and expended her venom on her maid; relaxation meant bridge, and bridge seemed to bring out all her worst points.
Rastall-Retford, and had ascertained that the Rastall-Retford with whom he had been at Cambridge and whom he still met occasionally at his club when he did not see him first, was this lady's son, he had set himself to court young Mr. Rastall-Retford.
"Have you no clubs, Miss Hendrie?" Eve started, and looked at her hand. "No," she said. Mrs. Rastall-Retford grunted suspiciously. Not long ago, in Westport, Connecticut, U.S.A., a young man named Harold Sperry, a telephone worker, was boring a hole in the wall of a house with a view to passing a wire through it. He whistled joyously as he worked.
"This is absurd," she cried. "You must have the ace of clubs. If you have not got it, who has? Look through your hand again. Is it there?" "No." "Then where can it be?" "Where can it be?" echoed Peter, taking another bite. "Why why," said Eve, crimson, "I I have only five cards. I ought to have six." "Five?" said Mrs. Rastall-Retford "Nonsense! Count again. Have you dropped it on the floor?" Mr.
Constant attendance on her employer was beginning to have a bad effect on her nerves. Association in a subordinate capacity with Mrs. Rastall-Retford did not encourage a proud and spirited outlook on life. Her imagination had not exaggerated Peter's sufferings. Many people consider that Dante has spoken the last word on the post-mortem housing of the criminal classes.
Rastall-Retford rustled into the room. Eve had not misread the storm-signals. Her employer's mood was still as it had been earlier in the day. Dinner passed in almost complete silence. Mrs. Rastall-Retford sat brooding dumbly. Her eye was cold and menacing, and Peter, working his way through his vegetables, shuddered for Eve.
She had found it at the house of Mrs. Rastall-Retford. And now this evening, as she sat in the drawing-room playing the piano to her employer, in had walked the latter's son, a tall, nervous young man, perpetually clearing his throat and fiddling with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, with the announcement that he had brought his friend, Mr. Rayner, to spend a few days in the old home.
Rastall-Retford, having taken the last trick, had gathered it up in the introspective manner of one planning big coups, and was brooding tensely, with knit brows. His mother was frowning over her cards. She was unobserved. She seized the opportunity.
He raised the olive-branch, and bit into it with the energy of a starving man. And as he did so he caught Eve's eye. "Miss Hendrie!" cried Mrs. Rastall-Retford. Eve started violently. "Miss Hendrie, will you be good enough to play? The king of clubs to beat. I can't think what's the matter with you to-night." "I'm very sorry," said Eve, and put down the nine of spades. Mrs. Rastall-Retford glared.
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