As he played he threw a glance at her now and
then; he could see well enough, but not very well because the smoke of
the shortening cigarette was in his eyes.
She returned at length into the sitting-room, carrying a small silk
bag about five inches by three. The waltz finished.
"But you'll take cold!" he murmured.
"No. At home I never take cold. Besides--"
Smiling at him as he swung round on the music-stool, she undid the
bag, and drew from it some folded stuff which she slowly shook
out, rather in the manner of a conjurer, until it was revealed as a
full-sized kimono. She laughed.
"Is it not marvellous?"
"It is."
"That is what I wear. In the way of chiffons it is the only fantasy
I have bought up to the present in London. Of course, clothes--I have
been forced to buy clothes. It matches exquisitely the stockings, eh?"
She slid her arms into the sleeves of the transparency. She was a
pretty and highly developed girl of twenty-six, short, still lissom,
but with the fear of corpulence in her heart. She had beautiful hair
and beautiful eyes, and she had that pucker of the forehead denoting,
according to circumstances, either some kindly, grave preoccupation or
a benevolent perplexity about something or other.
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