2Curious, perhaps, that even amidst her bitterest hostility to John, she yet believed him implicitly. His telling her at the outset that Michael was safe and well had lifted a heavy anxiety from her mind, and her relief, so sudden that it amounted almost to buoyancy, gave her power to be angry. A sharp rage broke over her, and she cried vehemently: “Yes, I will come into your private office, and I’ll not leave it till I know exactly where Micky is. So you can be prepared for that.”
And he replied quietly: “I am always prepared for anything.”
Then the storm lowered. She preceded him into the office, crying furiously as she did so: “You think you can do too much on your own! You treat your mother and me as though we simply didn’t exist.”
“Not at all. . . . Mother, at any rate, is quite su
