The rogues were trained to a hair.
Before she was framed in the doorway, the cold steel of another weapon was pressing against my throat, and the master was bowing in her direction.
"Madam, I beg that you will neither move nor cry out."
My sister stood like a statue. Only the rise and fall of her bosom showed that she was alive. Pale as death, her eyes riveted on the speaker, who was holding his right hand markedly behind him, her unbound hair streaming over her shoulders, she made a beautiful and arresting picture. A kimono of softest apricot, over which sprawled vivid embroideries, here in the guise of parti-coloured dragons, there in that of a wanton butterfly, swathed her from throat to foot. From the mouths of its gaping sleeves her shapely wrists and hands thrust out snow-white and still as sculpture.
For a moment all eyes were upon her, as she stood motionless.... Then the man with the eye-glass screwed it back into his eye, and resumed his dictation....
The spell was broken.
The packer left his work and, lifting a great chair bodily with apparent ease, set it noiselessly by my side.
The master bowed again.
"I congratulate you, madam, upon your great heart. I beg that you will join that gentleman."
With a high head, My Lady Disdain swept to the spot indicated and sank into the chair.