All this time Norman has been dressing for dinner. He now leaves the third floor and descends toward the library, as it still lacks twenty minutes of the dinner hour.
As he walked along the hall of the second floor a woman's voice called to him, "That you, Fred?"
He turned in at his sister's sitting room. She was standing at a table smoking a cigarette. Her tall, slim figure looked even taller and slimmer in the tight-fitting black satin evening dress. Her features faintly suggested her relationship to Norman. She was a handsome woman, with a voluptuous discontented mouth.
"What are you worried about, sis?" inquired he.
"How did you know I was worried?" returned she.
"You always are."
"Oh!"
"But you're unusually worried to-night."
"How did you know that?"
"You never smoke just before dinner unless your nerves are ragged. . . . What is it?"