Mathilda's voice became as honey.

"How DO you do, Mr. Wharton?" she was bubbling. "I didn't mean to
keep you waiting, but I couldn't imagine ... Yes, this is
Lorelei's mother. I'm all upset over the marriage, and of course
you are, too; but young people do the strangest things nowadays,
don't they? We forgave them, of COURSE--one COULDN'T be angry with
Robert, he's such a...What?"

Peter Knight let himself back into his bed with a feeble curse.
Women were such hysterical fools. What man could swallow that
sickly society tone? Then he lifted himself again, round-eyed with
apprehension. In that attitude he remained frozen.

"Why, Mr. Wharton!" came echoing through the door. "How CAN you
say such a thing? ... We knew nothing about it ... We did not ...
She's a good girl ... I'll have you understand you're talking to
her mother ... He is not; Jim is a ... Oh! ... You talk like an
old fool ... I ... You ..."

The sickly society tone was no longer in evidence. Mathilda's
voice was shrill and furious; it rose higher with every second.
Peter shouted; he struggled with the bed-clothes. Meanwhile his
wife appeared to be having a fit. Had a grounded wire poured an
electric shock into her body she could not have clung to the
instrument with more desperate tenacity. She writhed; her broken
cries were plainly wrung from her by nothing less than agony.

At last there came a cessation of her incoherence and a tinkling
of the bell as she furiously vibrated the hook.