"I thought I told you to be pleasant."
"I tried, Jim. You must remember I hardly know her." She got up and placed her hand on his arm, but he shook it off. "I don't understand, Jim, and I wish you wouldn't. What good is it?"
"I've told you what I want. I want that girl to come here, and to like coming here. That's plain, isn't it? But if you're going to sit with a frozen face--She'll be useful. Useful as hell to a preacher."
"I can't use my family that way."
"You and your family! Now listen, Elinor. This isn't a matter o the Cardews and me. It may be nothing, but it may be a big thing. I hardly know yet--" His voice trailed off; he stood with his head bent, lost in those eternal calculations with which Elinor Doyle was so familiar.
The doorbell rang, and was immediately followed by the opening and closing of the front door.
From her station at the telephone Lily Cardew saw a man come in, little more than a huge black shadow, which placed a hat on the stand and then, striking a match, lighted the gas overhead. In the illumination he stood before the mirror, smoothing back his shining black hair. Then he saw her, stared and retreated into the sitting room.
"Got company, I see."
"My niece, Lily Cardew," said Doyle, dryly.
The gentleman seemed highly amused. Evidently he considered Lily's presence in the house in the nature of a huge joke. He was conveying this by pantomime, in deference to the open door, when Doyle nodded toward Elinor.
"It's customary to greet your hostess, Louis."
"Easiest thing I do," boasted the new arrival cheerily. "'Lo, Mrs. Doyle. Is our niece going to dine with us?"
"I don't know yet, Mr. Akers," she said, without warmth. Louis Akers knew quite well that Elinor did not like him, and the thought amused him, the more so since as a rule women liked him rather too well. Deep in his heart he respected Jim Doyle's wife, and sometimes feared her. He respected her because she had behind her traditions of birth and wealth, things he professed to despise but secretly envied. He feared her because he trusted no woman, and she knew too much.
She loved Jim Doyle, but he had watched her, and he knew that sometimes she hated Doyle also. He knew that could be, because there had been women he had both loved and hated himself.