Nancy shut her door. She took off the trailing dress, and went to her bathroom. She turned on the hot water and washed her face. She washed off the shades and soupçons, the crèmes and the mascaro from her eyebrows and her chin, her ears and her nostrils. Then she pinned her hair loosely on the top of her head, as she always did, and put on the darkest of the three trailing gowns. But her nails she scrubbed in vain. They remained aggressively rose-coloured, and Nancy blushed hotly every time she saw them. She decided to put her hat and gloves on. She did so. Then she sat down in her sitting-room and waited. She waited fifteen minutes.
Then somebody knocked.
Nancy started to her feet as if she had been shot. With beating heart she ran back into the bedroom and shut the door after her. No, it was not quite shut; it swung lightly ajar, and Nancy left it so. She heard the knock repeated more loudly at the outer door; she heard the door open, and someone enter. Then the door closed, and steps—the waiter's steps—went back along the hall.
Somebody was in that room. Somebody! A man! A man whom she had never seen. A man to whom she had written forty or fifty letters, whom she had called "mon ami" and "mes amours," "Prince Charming," and "my unknown lover"!
Nancy stood motionless, petrified with shame, her face hidden in her white-gloved hands. She would never go in—never! Not if she had to stand here for years! She could not face that silent man next door.
The situation was becoming ridiculous. The silence was tense in both rooms. Ah, when three thousand miles had separated them, how near she had felt to him! And now, with a few feet of carpet and an open door between them, he was far away—incommensurably far away! A stranger, an intruder, an enemy!
Utter silence. Was he there? Yes. Nancy knew he was there, waiting.
Suddenly Nancy was frightened. The one idea possessed her to get away from that unseen, silent man. She would slip through the bathroom, and out into the passage and away! She took a step forward. Her trailing dress rustled. Her high-heeled boots creaked. And in the next room the man coughed.
Nancy stood still again, transfixed—turned to stone.
Another long silence, ludicrous, untenable. Then in the next room the First Words were spoken. He spoke them in a calm and well-bred voice.