Annabel yawned.
“They might do you good,” she remarked. “‘Alcide’ is very popular.”
Sir John turned towards the door.
“It does not appear to me,” he said, stiffly, “to be an affair for jests.”
Annabel laughed derisively and took up her book. She heard her husband’s heavy tread descending the stairs, and the wheels of his carriage as he drove off. Then she threw the volume away with a little impatient exclamation. She rose from her chair, and began walking up and down the room restlessly. Every now and then she fingered an ornament, moved a piece of furniture, or rearranged some draperies. Once she stopped in front of a mirror and looked at herself thoughtfully.
“I am getting plain,” she said, with a little shudder. “This life is killing me! Oh, it is dull, dull, dull!”
Suddenly an idea seemed to strike her. She went to her room and changed the loose morning gown in which she had lunched for a dark walking dress. A few minutes later she left the house on foot, and taking a hansom at the corner of the Square, drove to Anna’s flat.
Anna was having tea by herself when she entered. She rose at once with a little exclamation, half of surprise, half of pleasure.
“My dear Annabel,” she said, “this is delightful, but I thought that it was forbidden.”
“It is,” Annabel answered shortly. “But I wanted to see you.”