“But she’ll ask and ask,” thought Ethel.  “She’ll ask of me anything she wants.  And she’ll get me so tangled in other lies that then I wouldn’t have even a chance of making Joe see how things really are.”

This thought cleared her mind a little.

“No,” she said.  “You can tell him.”

“What!”

Ethel looked down at her hands in her lap, and noticed how tightly they were clenched.  She smiled at them.

“Tell him.”

“You’re sure of that?”

Ethel nodded.

“Very well!”

“She’s uneasy,” thought Ethel, “and disappointed—­not sure of herself.  I’ve done the right thing.”

But as in almost perfect silence they sat waiting for Joe to come home, her decision wavered again and again, and it took all her courage to hold herself in.  She made occasional trite remarks, and received replies of the same kind.  On them both the tension was growing.

“This means everything to you, too, Fanny, dear!” Ethel reflected viciously.  “If Joe believes me—­you’re done for!”

At each slight stir that Fanny made, Ethel hoped she had lost her courage and was getting ready to go.  But Fanny stayed And as she sat there motionless, what a strong figure she grew to be, moment by moment, in Ethel’s eyes—­strong in spite of the life she led, of clothes, rich feeding, drinking, dancing, old age swiftly coming on.  Strong nevertheless, in an odious way, in the loathsome point of view of her world toward love and marriage.  It had set her to prying and handed her here—­with these papers in her hands!  That was her way of looking at life, and a mighty strong way it appeared!

Suddenly Ethel’s eye was caught by Amy’s photograph on the table.  By degrees in the last few months Joe had ceased to notice it there.  But how he would notice it now, very soon, as soon as he’d read what Fanny had brought.  For Amy had taught Joe long ago to be jealous, never too sure of a wife.

“So Amy is here again, after all. . . .  I wonder what I shall say to Joe? . . .  Oh, rubbish!  Use more common sense!  All I’ve got to do is to make him see why I never told him about Dwight.  It was only part of that plan I had.  But what a fool!  Oh, what a fool!”

When at last Joe’s key was heard in the door, both women leaned slowly forward, as though the strain were unbearable.  And then as Joe came into the hall, Fanny said suddenly, sharp and clear: 

“No, I won’t keep quiet!  Joe has got to be told of this!” Ethel wheeled on her: 

“How odious!”

“I can’t help it—­he’s my friend!”

And the next moment, with Joe in the room, both women were talking to him at once—­angrily, incoherently, almost shoving each other away.  But only for a moment.  It was too disgusting!  Ethel left off and stood rigid there, while Fanny talked on rapidly.  She was speaking of how Ethel had cut off Joe from Amy’s friends.  Ethel heard only bits of this, for it all seemed so confused and unreal.  But she noticed how nervously tired he looked, all keyed up from his day at the office.  She remembered that his partner was out of town on business, that Joe had been running the office alone.  “He will be hard to manage,” she thought.  He interrupted Fanny in a sharp, excitable tone.