“There are several in the second tray of my wardrobe,” she said. “Choose a nice one, Lyndhurst, something that won’t look hideous with my pink silk.”
The smile, as you might almost say, of coquetry, which accompanied this speech, faded completely as soon as he left the room, and her face assumed that business-like aspect, which the softest and youngest faces wear, when the object is to attract, instead of letting a mutual attraction exercise its inevitable power. Even though Mrs. Ames’ object was the legitimate and laudable desire to attract her own husband, it was strange how common her respectable little countenance appeared. She had adorned herself to attract admiration: coquetry and anxiety were pitifully mingled, even as you may see them in haunts far less respectable than this detached villa, and on faces from which Mrs. Ames would instantly have averted her own. She hoped he would bring a certain white silk shawl: two nights ago she had worn it on the verandah after dinner at Overstrand, and the reflected light from it, she had noticed, as she stood beneath a light opposite a mirror in the hall, had made her throat look especially soft and plump. She stood underneath the light now waiting for his return.
Fortune was favourable: it was that shawl that he brought, and she turned round for him to put it on her shoulders. Then she faced him again in the remembered position, underneath the light, smiling.
“Now, I am ready, Lyndhurst,” she said.
He opened the French window for her, and stood to let her pass out. Again she smiled at him, and waited for him to join her on the rather narrow gravel path. There was actually room for two abreast on it, for, on the evening of her dinner-party, Harry had walked here side by side with Mrs. Evans. But there was only just room.
“You go first, Amy,” he said, “or shall I? We can scarcely walk abreast here.”
But she took his arm.
“Nonsense, my dear,” she said. “There: is there not heaps of room?”
He felt vaguely uncomfortable. It was not only the necessity of putting his feet down one strictly in front of the other that made him so.
“Anything the matter, my dear?” he asked.