"Well, haven't you got anything to say? No, I don't suppose you have!" Mrs. Tracy taunted him.

"I don't know what you expect me to say. I don't know what you're talking about. That glove is Mrs. Tarrant's—she left here only a few minutes ago."

Mrs. Tracy's sallow face grew sallower. He saw that she was unprepared for the answer and not wholly inclined to believe it. "Mrs. Tarrant—what was she doing here?"

"She came to see me."

"And what were you doing here?"

"Writing, as you see."

Mrs. Tracy was silent for a moment, her eyes fixed incredulously on the piled-up pages before her. "I'd like to know who it is lets you in," she said at length.

"Why, Mrs. Tarrant let me in today, of course."

"Today! Maybe she did. I'm not talking only about today. It's not the only day you've been here."

Vance hesitated. He had expected to silence his mother-in-law, and dispel her suspicions, by naming Mrs. Tarrant—one of the few persons who had the undisputed right to come and go in that house. But it would be a different matter, he instantly felt, to let Mrs. Tracy associate Halo's name with the frequent and clandestine visits of which she evidently suspected him. He was convinced now that she had come on purpose to surprise him, as the result of information received; and he was never ready-witted in emergencies.

"Well, I don't know's I need ask who lets you in," she pursued. "You had plenty of time to have duplicate keys made while I was sick."

"Certainly I had—if it had occurred to me to do anything so low-down."

"Low-down? I guess it isn't that would have prevented you, if you'd been set on coming here, whether it was to steal books or to meet women … maybe both … " she flung back, trembling.

Her agitation had a steadying effect on Vance. "Why not both, as you say?" he rejoined impartially, beginning to gather up his papers. He was sure she was not there without a definite purpose, and it was obviously safer to leave the burden of explanation on her shoulders. After all, he had nothing to reproach himself with but the venial wrong of concealing from Laura Lou that he did his writing at the Willows, and not at the New Hour office. He had been slaving all summer to pay off the money Mrs. Tracy had accepted from Bunty Hayes, and the women had better leave him alone, or he'd know why… . Silently he crammed his papers into their usual storing-place and walked toward the door.

Mrs. Tracy stepped in front of him. "Where are you going?"

"Home."

"Home? It's a place you don't often trouble. Why don't you do your writing there—if it's writing you say you come here for?"

"Because I'm never left alone," he said, his anger rising again. Mrs. Tracy saw her chance and laughed. "Not with the right woman, you mean?"