So, still dressed as she had left the salon, Olwen slipped quickly out of her room and down a sharply-angled corridor, passing as she went the old Frenchman with the red speck in his button-hole and the elder lady in mourning.
Olwen glanced up at the numbers on the doors.
... "22," that was Mr. Awdas's room; she had overheard him telling Madame that he would remember vingt-deux because it was his own age. "23," next to it on the right; that was Mrs. Cartwright's. Olwen hoped that she had not yet gone to bed.
She tapped.
"Entrez!" called Mrs. Cartwright's deep voice, rather absorbed.
Olwen entered, to find the writer apparently ready for bed, but at work.
Her green shaded lamp was alight on the table, where she sat with a pad before her.
Her brown hair hung down in two plaits over a Persian robe of raw white silk, almost seamless, gold-girdled, and with stars and islands worked in gold thread; a relic of her time in the East. Another relic, perhaps, was the mingling of faint discreet scents that hung about the room: sandal-wood, orris, kuss-kuss, and rose.
She looked up; then sprang to her feet as she saw Olwen Howel-Jones, still dressed as she had gone to bed some time before.
"My dear——Anything wrong?"