Two Flights Up by Mary Roberts Rinehart Read Free Book Online

and not for what he will bring her.”
    Their eyes met, and there was certainly no friendliness in them. Mrs. Bayne drew herself up.
    “That, of course, is not a matter for discussion,” she said quietly, and went out of the room.
    That she bore him no lasting grudge, however, he saw the next evening. He found her when he came home, drinking her tea as usual, with her hat awry on her head and a litter of parcels and boxes in the hall. She was clearly excited, and more expansive than he had ever seen her.
    “Do come in,” she said. “Holly, a cup for Mr. Warrington. Don’t bother to ring. By the way, darling, I stopped in at your Aunt Margaret’s. She’ll be delighted to do what I suggested.”
    But Holly was already out of the room.
    Mrs. Bayne waved a hand toward the hall. “What a day I’ve had! But the prices of things since the war! I have done so little buying that I didn’t realize.”
    Her eyes glittered; her hands trembled. There was almost ecstasy in her voice. He saw that she had not so much forgiven the evening before as forgotten it, and to the unaccustomed luxury of being with Holly he surrendered for a moment his own anger and bitterness.
    He even had a few moments alone with her, while Mrs. Bayne went upstairs to take off her hat, a few moments which led to a rather curious result.
    “I’ve always wanted to tell you,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t know what got into me the other day. I hadn’t a right in the world to say what I did.”
    “No,” she said. “Of course, you didn’t really know how things were. If you had, you would have understood better.”
    “I wouldn’t understand a loveless marriage, no matter how things were.”
    “How do you know it is a loveless marriage?”
    “What did you mean by ‘not letting her down’ if it isn’t?”
    Instead of replying she went to the door and listened. Her mother was still upstairs. When she came back to the tea table, her face was set.
    “I’m going to ask you something,” she said. “Something rather awful, but I must know. Has mother borrowed any money from you?”
    “Certainly not. You can’t get blood out of a stone! Anyhow, I am sure she would never think of such a thing.”
    “But she’s got money somewhere.”
    “Hasn’t she a little capital of her own? Maybe she has disposed of something.”
    “She had a small allowance. She can’t draw on it in advance.”
    “She may have saved something.”
    “Saved!” said Holly scornfully. “You can’t save out of nothing. Mr. Warrington, if you know anything, you must tell me. I can’t tell you how important it is.”
    “But if she asked me not to?”
    “What does that matter, if she’s sold something that she shouldn’t have sold? Oh, don’t you see, if she has, she’s done it for me, and I just can’t bear it.”
    “I’m quite sure you are wrong. I’ll tell you, since it’s worrying you. She gave me a bond to sell. I got her a good price. And that’s all.”
    “A bond!” she said. “She gave you a bond? My poor mother!”
    Her face was stricken; she seemed to be holding to the tea table for support. And then Mrs. Bayne came back.

CHAPTER NINE
    E VEN THEN WARRINGTON HAD no idea of the gravity of the situation. He helped them carry Mrs. Bayne’s parcels up to her bedroom, and later on he could hear her opening them and talking, still in her new excited voice. She was still gloating happily as he went out again to his dinner, where the cashier at the Red Rose told him he looked glum, and hinted that the movies would cheer them both up a bit.
    “There’s a good show at the Grand,” she said. “A laugh a minute.”
    “I wouldn’t dare,” he told her, smiling down at her. “I’ve got a cracked lip.”
    He ate his dinner morosely and thoughtfully, and then went back to the house. So Mrs. Bayne had had no business to sell the bond! And in doing so she had added to Holly’s worries, as if she had not enough already.
    Worries! The word was too weak.