Then she didn't want him to go out? He had wronged her in this, at any rate. Germaine stared at the door through which his wife had just gone with a feeling of miserable uncertainty.
Then his eye travelled round to the place where she had been standing just now, in front of Joliffe's bureau. A glance at Bella's bank-book would set his mind at rest one way or the other. It would go far to prove or disprove the story Mrs. Bliss had told, for it would show if Bella were indeed in the habit of drawing considerable cheques to "self." Why hadn't he thought of this simple test before,--before shaming himself and shaming his wife by base suspicions?
And yet Oliver, for some few moments, stood in the middle of the room irresolute. Yesterday it would never have occurred to him that Bella would mind his looking at her bank-book, although, as a matter of fact he never had looked at it. She was a tidy little woman; he knew that everything under the flap which he had seen her close down so quickly just now would be exquisitely neat; he knew the exact spot where her bank-book was to be found.
With a curious feeling that he was doing something dishonourable,--and it was a feeling which sat very uneasily on Oliver Germaine,--he took hold of the little brass knob and slid up the flap of the sloping desk.
The bank-book closed the ranks of the red household books over which in old days, when they were first married, before he had come into his fortune, he had actually seen Bella shed tears.
With fingers that felt numb he took up the little vellum-bound book and opened it at the page containing the latest items.
There, on the credit side, was the sum of money which had been paid in, to his bankers' order, on the last quarter day. On the debit side were a few cheques made out to trades-people. There was not a single cheque made out to "self" on the page at which he was looking; but--but of course it was possible that Bella, like so many women, added a few pounds for change every time she settled a tradesman's account.
He turned several leaves of the little book backwards----Here was a page which bore the date of three years ago; and here, as he had feared to find, there were constant, small entries to "self"....