"Shall we go?" asked the girl in a low voice.
They rose. A similar impulse seemed to seize Belter, and he got up almost blindly and strode across the floor.
Cleland, suddenly confronted at the door of the cloak-room, from which Marie was just emerging, said:
"Hello, Harry," in a rather embarrassed manner.
"Go to hell," replied the latter in a low voice of concentrated fury, and turned on his wife.
"Marie," he said unsteadily, "may I speak to you?"
"Certainly, but not now," replied the girl, who had turned white as a sheet.
Cleland touched the man’s arm which was trembling:
"Better not interfere," he said pleasantly. "The disgrace of a row will be yours, not your wife’s."
"What are _you_ doing with my wife!" whispered Belter, his voice shaking with rage.
"I’ll tell you, Harry. I’m showing her all the respect and friendship and sympathy that there is in me to to show to a charming, sincere young girl.... You know the sort of man I am. You ought to know your wife but evidently you don’t. Therefore, your question is superfluous."
Belter drew him abruptly back to the foot of the stairs:
"If you’re lying I’ll kill you," he said. "Do you understand?"
"Yes. And if you make any yellow scene here, Harry, after I’ve taken your wife home, I’ll come back and settle you. Do _you_ understand? ... For God’s sake," he added coldly, "if you’ve got any breeding, show it now!"
The tense silence between them lasted a full minute. Then, very slowly, Belter turned toward the cloak-room where, just within the door, his wife stood looking at him.
His sanguine features had lost all their colour in the greyish pallour that suddenly aged him. He went toward her; she made the slightest movement of recoil, but faced him calmly.
"I’m sorry," he said in a voice like a whisper. "I am—the fool that you—think me.... I’ll—take myself off."
He bowed to her pleasantly, turned and passed Cleland with his hat still in his hand:
"I’m sorry, Jim; I know you’re all right; and I’m—all wrong ... all wrong——"
"Come to the studio to-morrow. Will you, Harry?" whispered Cleland.
But Belter shook his head, continuing on his way to the street.
"I’ll expect you," added Cleland. "Come about noon!"
The other made no sign that he had heard.