Bereft of the garment, her fragility was evident enough. Bernard Meer admired slight women; but this girl's physique struck him as too delicate for stage-work. He thought, too, that he detected signs of privation in her face. Why that should be when apparently she could afford to dress so expensively was a puzzle to him. He sounded her carefully.
"There's nothing much the matter, is there?" she asked, when he had done.
"Not at present. But you're too thin. You want looking after, coddling. Are you very keen on the stage?"
"I don't find it altogether alluring," she made answer a little reluctantly; "but I can't afford to give it up."
"That isn't absolutely necessary. Only—well, the luxuries that the average woman can easily do without are essential to you. Get the person who gave you those furs to treat you to a few guinea jars of turtle soup and—"
Alexandra's flaming face made him stop.
"The lady who gave them to me is dead," she said quietly.
A little while ago she would have resented Meer's words as an intentional insult. Now she knew that her connection with the stage had suggested them to him. Probably he meant nothing offensive. As a matter of fact he did not. Still, for some reason which she could not define, she felt hurt that he should have thought it necessary to convey what he did.
She felt, too, that his scrutiny was not entirely that of the physician. She sensed the man in it. Had she also been aware that he was admiring her—a circumstance of which his impassive face gave no indication—and that he was pleasantly surprised to find her free from a weakness common to the general run of De Freyne's beauties, her perturbation would have been greater than it was.
"The trouble with you," he said with friendly intent, "is mainly want of proper nourishment. Please forgive the question, but—are you hard up?"