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Goodness gracious! I wonder what's up?" she said to Lawrence.

He did not seem to have heard her, for without a word he turned on his heel

and went out of the house.

I suggested a quick game of tennis before supper and, Cynthia agreeing, I

ran upstairs to fetch my racquet.

Mrs. Cavendish was coming down the stairs. It may have been my fancy, but

she, too, was looking odd and disturbed.

"Had a good walk with Dr. Bauerstein?" I asked, trying to appear as

indifferent as I could.

I didn't go," she replied abruptly. "Where is Mrs. Inglethorp?"

In the boudoir."

Her hand clenched itself on the banisters, then she seemed to nerve herself

for some encounter, and went rapidly past me down the stairs across the

hall to the boudoir, the door of which she shut behind her.

As I ran out to the tennis court a few moments later, I had to pass the open

boudoir window, and was unable to help overhearing the following scrap of

dialogue. Mary Cavendish was saying in the voice of a woman desperately

controlling herself:

"Then you won't show it to me?"

To which Mrs. Inglethorp replied:

My dear Mary, it has nothing to do with that matter."

Then show it to me."

I tell you it is not what you imagine. It does not concern you in the least."

To which Mary Cavendish replied, with a rising bitterness:

Of course, I might have known you would shield him."

The Mysterious Affair at Styles