She had rouged to-night and looked as
lovely as when Morsigny had captured her, but her magnificent gown had been
too hastily taken in by an elderly inefficient maid--her young one having
patriotically deserted her for munitions long since, and sagged on her
bones as she expressed it. Sibyl, who was in bed with the flu, had offered
to lend her one of the new ones she had had the forethought to buy in New
York before sailing, and was only a year old, but Olive had feared the
critical eyes of French women who had not replenished their evening
wardrobe since nineteen-fourteen.
Alexina did not feel particularly consoled because others had looked no
better than she. Until to-night she had given little thought to her looks,
but she now felt a renewed interest in herself, and the frown was as much
for this revival as for her wilted beauty.
Her evening wrap was very warm and she sat down in the hard arm-chair and
huddled into its folds, covering the lower part of her body with a hideous
brown quilt. No doubt the sheets were damp, and she knew that she could not
sleep. Why shiver in bed?
III
Was it Gathbroke? It was long since she had thought of him. She had not
even seen his photograph for four or five years. If it were, he had changed
even more since that photograph had been taken than after she had dismissed
him at Rincona.
She was by no means sore that it was he.
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