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.