The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington [best english novels for beginners .txt] 📗

an upward twist, as of mocking inquiry, and followed it by another, expressive of hilarious comprehension. “Oh!”

Bibbs looked at her studiously, but she spoke no further. And that completed the conversation at the lugubrious feast.

Coffee came finally, was disposed of quickly, and the party dispersed to other parts of the house. Bibbs followed his father and Roscoe into the library, but was not well received.

“You go and listen to the phonograph with the women-folks,” Sheridan commanded.

Bibbs retreated. “Sometimes you do seem to be a hard sort of man!” he said.

However, he went obediently to the gilt-and-brocade room in which his mother and his sister and his sister-in-law had helplessly withdrawn, according to their Sabbatical custom. Edith sat in a corner, tapping her feet together and looking at them; Sibyl sat in the center of the room, examining a brooch which she had detached from her throat; and Mrs. Sheridan was looking over a collection of records consisting exclusively of Caruso and ragtime. She selected one of the latter, remarking that she thought it “right pretty,” and followed it with one of the former and the same remark.

As the second reached its conclusion, George appeared in the broad doorway, seeming to have an errand there, but he did not speak. Instead, he favored Edith with a benevolent smile, and she immediately left the room, George stepping aside for her to precede him, and then disappearing after her in the hall with an air of successful diplomacy. He made it perfectly clear that Edith had given him secret instructions and that it had been his pride and pleasure to fulfil them to the letter.

Sibyl stiffened in her chair; her lips parted, and she watched with curious eyes the vanishing back of the white jacket.

“What’s that?” she asked, in a low voice, but sharply.

“Here’s another right pretty record,” said Mrs. Sheridan, affecting⁠—with patent nervousness⁠—not to hear. And she unloosed the music.

Sibyl bit her lip and began to tap her chin with the brooch. After a little while she turned to Bibbs, who reposed at half-length in a gold chair, with his eyes closed.

“Where did Edith go?” she asked, curiously.

“Edith?” he repeated, opening his eyes blankly. “Is she gone?”

Sibyl got up and stood in the doorway. She leaned against the casing, still tapping her chin with the brooch. Her eyes were dilating; she was suddenly at high tension, and her expression had become one of sharp excitement. She listened intently.

When the record was spun out she could hear Sheridan rumbling in the library, during the ensuing silence, and Roscoe’s voice, querulous and husky: “I won’t say anything at all. I tell you, you might just as well let me alone!”

But there were other sounds: a rustling and murmur, whispering, low protesting cadences in a male voice. And as Mrs. Sheridan started another record, a sudden, vital resolve leaped like fire in the eyes of Sibyl. She walked down the hall and straight into the smoking-room.

Lamhorn and Edith both sprang to their feet, separating. Edith became instantly deathly white with a rage that set her shaking from head to foot, and Lamhorn stuttered as he tried to speak.

But Edith’s shaking was not so violent as Sibyl’s, nor was her face so white. At sight of them and of their embrace, all possible consequences became nothing to Sibyl. She courtesied, holding up her skirts and contorting her lips to the semblance of a smile.

“Sit just as you were⁠—both of you!” she said. And then to Edith: “Did you tell my husband I had been telephoning to Lamhorn?”

“You march out of here!” said Edith, fiercely. “March straight out of here!”

Sibyl leveled a forefinger at Lamhorn.

“Did you tell her I’d been telephoning you I wanted you to come?”

“Oh, good God!” Lamhorn said. “Hush!”

“You knew she’d tell my husband, didn’t you?” she cried. “You knew that!”

“Hush!” he begged, panic-stricken.

“That was a manly thing to do! Oh, it was like a gentleman! You wouldn’t come⁠—you wouldn’t even come for five minutes to hear what I had to say! You were tired of what I had to say! You’d heard it all a thousand times before, and you wouldn’t come! No! No! No!” she stormed. “You wouldn’t even come for five minutes, but you could tell that little cat! And she told my husband! You’re a man!”

Edith saw in a flash that the consequences of battle would be ruinous to Sibyl, and the furious girl needed no further temptation to give way to her feelings. “Get out of this house!” she shrieked. “This is my father’s house. Don’t you dare speak to Robert like that!”

“No! No! I mustn’t speak⁠—”

“Don’t you dare!”

Edith and Sibyl began to scream insults at each other simultaneously, fronting each other, their furious faces close. Their voices shrilled and rose and cracked⁠—they screeched. They could be heard over the noise of the phonograph, which was playing a brass-band selection. They could be heard all over the house. They were heard in the kitchen; they could have been heard in the cellar. Neither of them cared for that.

“You told my husband!” screamed Sibyl, bringing her face still closer to Edith’s. “You told my husband! This man put that in your hands to strike me with! He did!”

“I’ll tell your husband again! I’ll tell him everything I know! It’s time your husband⁠—”

They were swept asunder by a bandaged hand. “Do you want the neighbors in?” Sheridan thundered.

There fell a shocking silence. Frenzied Sibyl saw her husband and his mother in the doorway, and she understood what she had done. She moved slowly toward the door; then suddenly she began to run. She ran into the hall, and through it, and out of the house. Roscoe followed her heavily, his eyes on the ground.

“Now then!” said Sheridan to Lamhorn.

The words were indefinite, but the voice was not. Neither was the vicious gesture of the bandaged hand, which concluded its orbit in the direction of the door in a manner sufficient for the swift dispersal of George and Jackson and several female servants who hovered