She has a big soft face with thick lips, little eyes, and a rudimentary nose; generally as expressionless as such a face is bound to be. But when I asked her this question it suddenly seemed to turn to wood--not actively cruel; it merely expressed the negation of all human sympathy. She turned without a word and slumped--pardon the expression--out of the room. But the breakfast was burned this morning--I had to cook another for poor David--and I know she did it on purpose. I am afraid I shall have to let her go." "I would," said Mrs. Battle, wisely. "She is probably a spy and quite clever." "Yes, but such a worker!" Mrs. Balfame sighed reminiscently. "And when you have but one servant--" The tardy partner bustled in and the game began. CHAPTER V It was about six o'clock when Mrs. Balfame, steadily losing, contrary to all precedent, her mind concentrated, her features, like those of the rest of the players, as hard as the stone faces dug out of Egypt, her breath escaping in hissing jets, became vaguely conscious of a disturbance in the outer room. The young people were dancing, as was usual in the hour before supper, but the piano and fiddles appeared to be playing against the ribald interruptions of a man's voice. It was some time before the narrow flow of thought in Mrs. Balfame's brain was deflected by the powerful outer current, but suddenly she became aware that her partners were holding their cards suspended, and that their ears were cocked toward the door. Then she recognised her husband's voice. For a moment she lost her breath and her blood ran chill. She had been apprehensive for some time of a scene in public, but she had assumed that it would occur in a friend's house of an evening; he attended her nowhere else. The Club he had deserted long since; it was much too slow for a man of his increasing proclivities, especially in a county liberally provided with saloons and road houses. During the last month she had become sensible of a new hostility in his attitude toward her; it was as if he had suddenly penetrated her hidden aversion and all his masculine vanity had risen in revolt. Being a woman of an almost excessive tact, she had sprayed this vanity for twenty-two years with the delicately scented waters of flattery, but the springs had gone suddenly dry on that morning when she had uttered her simple and natural desire to bring the conjugal sleeping accommodations up to date. And now he had come out here to disgrace her, she immediately concluded, to make her a figure of fun, to destroy her social leadership. This might also involve him in a loss, but when a man is both drunk and angry his foresight grows dim and revenge is sweet.