It was to be a new and strange experience for
them both.
She sat before the dressing-table, having slipped into a little lilac and
white negligee. The half-curling masses of her black hair covered her
shoulders as she brushed them out--slowly, because she was thinking so
busily about it all, and had forgotten to make haste. Suddenly the door
leading into the office flew open--and closed as quickly. Steps behind
her, pausing, made her turn, to meet her husband's eyes.
He came close. An unmistakably "doctorish" odour accompanied him--an
odour not disagreeable but associated with modern means for securing
perfect cleanliness. He wore his white jacket, fresh from Cynthia's
painstaking hands. His eyes were very bright, his lips were smiling.
His arms came about her from behind, his head against hers gently forced
it back to face the mirror. In it the two pairs of eyes met again, hazel
and black.
"To think that I should see _that_ reflected from my old glass!"
whispered Red Pepper Burns.
CHAPTER II
THE WAY TO ATTAIN AN END
Mrs. Redfield Pepper Burns stood in the doorway of her living-room and
studied it with a critical eye. Within the room, on either side, stood
her sister Martha, Mrs. James Macauley, and her friend Winifred, Mrs.
Arthur Chester. In precisely these same relative positions were they
also her neighbours as to their own homes.
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