“What for instance?”
She said, “That’s what I want Emily Milicant to tell you. But before she told you, I wanted you to — well, get the sketch. I think she wants to marry Uncle Alden. You’ll have to make allowances for that. Ned Barkler is one of Uncle Alden’s closest friends. He knew Uncle up in the Klondike years ago. I asked him to come along.”
“Shall I ask them to come in?” Mason inquired.
“If you will, please.”
Mason picked up the telephone, and said, “Ask Miss Milicant and Mr. Barkler to come in, please.” He dropped the receiver into place and glanced expectantly at the door to the outer office.
Emily Milicant had quite evidently tried to preserve the contours of youth although she was somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five. She had starved her face into submission, but her body was more obstinate. Despite the hollows under her cheekbones and the wide intensity of her staring, black eyes, she retained little rolls of fat just above the hipbones. Dieting had made her face gaunt, her neck almost scrawny, but the fit of her dress across the hips lacked the smooth symmetry which she had so evidently tried to achieve.
Barkler was in the late fifties, weatherbeaten, wiry and hard. He walked with a slight limp. Mason acknowledged introductions, motioned them to chairs, and waited.
Emily Milicant dropped into a chair and immediately seemed to become thin. Her black eyes, staring out from above the hollowing cheeks, conveyed the impression of an emotional intensity which was burning up her mental energy.
Barkler took a pipe from his pocket with the manner of a man who intended that his contribution to the conference was to be an attentive silence.
Emily Milicant’s eyes met those of Mason with the force of physical impact. “I presume,” she said, “that Phyllis has told you all about me. It was delicate and tactful of her, but entirely unnecessary. I could have covered the situation in fewer words. So far as the Leeds family are concerned, Mr. Mason, with the exception of Phyllis here,” — and she indicated Phyllis by rotating her forearm on the elbow and twisting the wrist quickly as though to shake a gesture off her fingertips, — “I’m an adventuress. I have ceased to be known as Emily Milicant. I am referred to as ‘that woman.’”