Her simulation of annoyance on returning to the bedside, to find the dreamer reclaimed, was a nice histrionic bit. She reminded; urged; finally shook. At last the lady of lethargy, smiling deliciously, aroused to a sitting posture. The thrown coverlet bared two rosy feet for the enclosure of satin mules. She deserted the nest of the night, crossed the room front stage and stood with arms uplifted as an aid to her yawns.
The spotlight found her some seconds before the maid could throw over her a bathrobe of silk so pliant that it might have been drawn through a bracelet.
Inhalations and forward-leanings moved the audience.
Indeed, there was cause for comment. The daring of Seff in his presentation, the novelty of the crêpe sleeping-gown which, innocent of filet or ribbons, depended solely upon its Empire lines and girdling silken cord—even the type of the model was rare.
Pretty of face beyond question, with a luminous sort of pallor, red lips delicately full and purplish, child-wide eyes, she stood revealing through the sheer a body both slender and rounded. Discussions of her as frank as they were low-pitched proved that the pantomime was “taking” from the start.
John Cabot was of the few who suppressed remark, but none watching him could have doubted his interest.
Catherine curved an amused smile at him.
“Et tu, Brute,” she murmured.
At first from natural endowment and later from deliberate effort, John always had believed in the virtue of women until compelled to disbelieve. To-day he was studying neither the exquisite, hand-stitched garment nor the “points” of the manikin who wore it.
Had he really seen lines of suffering at the corners of that smiling mouth? Had he imagined a look of distress in eyes which momentarily had met, but now evaded his? He was no sentimentalist. Yet he wondered.