Ogden Dearborne was lean as a log, but he moved with quick, easy grace. You could see his job was outdoors in the desert, and he was young enough to have a boyish pride in his deeply bronzed skin.
A door opened. A woman came in. I got up, and Ogden said, “Mother, may I present Mr. Lam of Los Angeles — the one Arthur Whitewell telephoned about.”
She came toward me, smiling graciously.
She was a woman who was still in the running. She’d taken care of her figure and her face. She might be in the late forties, perhaps in the early fifties, but she might have been in the thirties. She knew the pinch of self-denial, this woman. She didn’t eat everything she wanted and try to keep her figure by wrapping her body with elastic. She had kept her figure by self-discipline — by going hungry.
She was brunette with eyes that glittered like polished, black marble. Her nose was long and straight, and the nostrils were so thin they seemed almost transparent.
She said, “How do you do, Mr. Lam. Anything we can do for a friend of Arthur Whitewell will be a privilege. Won’t you make our house your headquarters while you’re in Las Vegas?”
It was one of those invitations that was a symbol. If I’d said yes, someone would have had to sleep on the back porch, I wasn’t expected to say yes. I said very gravely, “Thank you very much. I’ll probably be here only a few hours, and I’ll be busy. But I appreciate your invitation.”
The girl came in then. It was as though they’d been standing outside the door, timing their entrance, each one careful not to interfere with the impression the others would make.
Mrs. Dearborne went through the formula. “Eloise, I wish to present Mr. Lam of Los Angeles, the person Mr. Whitewell telephoned about.”
Eloise was unmistakably the daughter of her mother. She had the same long, straight nose. The nostrils weren’t quite as paper thin. Her hair was a deep auburn. Her eyes were blue, but there was the same hard leanness, the same purpose of living, the same impression of self-discipline. These women were hunters, and they had just that feline touch which the woman hunter always has. A cat, sprawling out in front of the warmth of a fireplace, looks as softly ornamental as the fur thrown about a woman’s throat. The padded feet move noiselessly, and softly. But the claws are there, and it’s because they’re kept sheathed, they’re so deadly dangerous. A dog doesn’t conceal his claws, and they’re only good for digging. A cat sheathes its claws, and they possess needlesharp efficiency in the problem of sustaining life by death.