Read "The Step on the Stair" by Anna Katharine Green online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Haines' welcome to us at the front door was a study in character which I left to a later hour to thoroughly enjoy.
The sudden flush which rose to his lank cheek gave evidence to his surprise. The formal bow and respectful greeting, to the command he had over it. Had one of us appeared alone, there would have been no surprise, only the formal greeting. But to see us together was enough to stir the blood of even one who had been for years under the discipline of Edgar Quenton Bartholomew, the one and only.