[Pg 139] But finally her brow relaxed. She shrugged her shoulders and began to unbutton the dense black gown that had expressed the mood the world demands of a four-days' widow. Let them suspect, divine what they chose. Not a soul on earth but Anna Steuer knew that she had been out that night after her return home. Even had those lynx-eyed young men sat on the box hedge they could not have seen her, for the avenue was well lighted, and the grove, the entire yard in fact, had been as black as a mine. Even the person skulking among those trees could not have guessed who she was. For a moment she had been tempted to tell them a little; that she had looked out and seen a moving shadow in the grove. But she had remembered in time that they would ask why she had reserved this testimony at the coroner's inquest. Her rôle was to know nothing. Indubitably the shot had been fired from the trees; nobody questioned that; why involve herself? They would discharge still another set of questions at her, among others why she had not telephoned for the police. As she hung up her gown she recognised the heavy footfalls of her maid of all work, and when Frieda knocked, bade her enter, employing those cool impersonal tones so resented by the European servant after a brief sojourn on the dedicated American soil. As the girl closed the door behind her without speaking, Mrs. Balfame turned sharply. She felt at a disadvantage. As her figure was reasonably slim, she wore a cheap corset which she washed once a month[Pg 140] in the bath tub with her nailbrush; and her linen, although fresh, as ever, was of stout longcloth, and unrelieved by the coquetry of ribbons. She wore a serviceable tight petticoat of black jersey, beyond which her well-shod feet seemed to loom larger than her head. She was vaguely grateful that she had not been caught by Alys Crumley, so fond of sketching her, and was about to order Frieda to untie her tongue and be gone, when she noticed that the girl's face was no longer bound, and asked kindly: [Pg 140] "Has the toothache gone? I hope you do not suffer any longer." Frieda lifted her small and crafty eyes and shot a suspicious glance at the mistress who had been so indifferent to what she believed to be the worst of all pains. "It's out."
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