It sounded again as she stood looking at old Foster
the maltster's picture there on the mantelpiece where Quisante did not
like to see it.
For what was the meaning of it to her, declared by her perverse
determination to keep it there and plain enough to her husband's quick
wit? It was the outward sign that her malicious fancy chose of the new
state of feeling and the new relation between them which had emerged from
the tempest of emotion that Foster's congratulatory note had thrown her
into. The tempest had raged in solitude and silence; she had not spoken a
word to her sister, or to Jimmy Benyon, hardly a word to Quisante
himself. He had his case of course, and she was obliged to hear it, to
hear also Foster's own account of how he came to express himself so
awkwardly and to write as though Mr. Quisante had originally set the
story afloat, whereas he meant only to applaud the tact with which his
leader had regulated their conduct towards it after it was started. May
said she was quite sure he had meant only this, thanked him for all his
services, and begged the photograph.
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