Crossing to the fireplace, she stood looking down into the coals for a long time, while I remained where I was, an awkward, gauche spectator, conscious of having put my clumsiest foot into my mouth every time I opened it and wondering whether I could now safely get it out again without further disaster.
Her back was toward me. She was dressed in a dainty, pinkish house gown—or maybe it was light blue. At any rate it was a very pretty gown and she was wonderfully graceful in it. Ordinarily in my fiction I am quite clever at describing gowns that do not exist; but when it comes to telling what a real woman is wearing, I am not only as vague as a savage, but painfully stupid about colors. Still, I think it was pink. I recall the way her soft brown hair grew above the slender neck, and the lovely white skin; the smooth, delicate contour of her half-averted cheek and the firm little chin with the trembling red lips above it; the shapely back and shoulders and the graceful curves of her hips, suggestive of a secret perfection. She was taller than I had thought at first sight, or was it that I seemed to be getting smaller myself? A hasty bit of comparison placed her height at five feet six, using my own as something to go by. She couldn't have been a day over twenty-two. But she had a baby!
Facing me once more she said: "If you will sit down, Mr. Smart, and be patient and generous with me, I shall try to explain everything. You have a right to demand it of me, and I shall feel more comfortable after it is done."
I drew up a chair beside the table and sat down. She sank gracefully into another, facing me. A delicate frown appeared on her brow.
"Doubtless you are very much puzzled by my presence in this gloomy old castle. You have been asking yourself a thousand questions about me, and you have been shocked by my outrageous impositions upon your good nature. I confess I have been shockingly impudent and—"
"Pardon me; you are the only sauce I've had for an excessively bad bargain."
"Please do not interrupt me," she said coldly. "I am here, Mr. Smart, because it is the last place in the world where my husband would be likely to look for me."
"Your husband? Look for you?"
"Yes. I shall be quite frank with you. My husband and I have separated. A provisional divorce was granted, however, just seven months ago. The final decree cannot be issued for one year."
"But why should you hide from him?"