A faint perfume was in the air, elusive but sweetly intimate. Upon an ottoman lay a fan and a pair of lace mittens.
"Begad," murmured Anthony, sniffing, "there's nothing like perfume to give a fellow palpitations, and palpitations always make my cravat too tight—devilish thing's choking me! A good woman, Perry, can be the most doocedly alluring, devilish engaging, utterly provoking creature in creation—far more so than—t' other sort. I'm married and I know!"
"Yes," said I, looking down at the discarded fan and deeply stirred by the elusive fragrance.
"Devil take this cravat!" exclaimed Anthony, wrestling with it before a mirror. "If they don't come soon, 't will be wreck, demmit! I wish to heaven they'd come."
"So do I, Anthony!"
"Finishing touches, I expect, Perry—they will do it! And mean to surprise us, of course." But as moment after moment elapsed, his impatience grew. "I wonder what's keeping 'em!" he exclaimed.
"I wonder!" said I.
At the end of ten minutes he was striding up and down the room in a very ferment.
"Damned strange!" he muttered. "Devilish incomprehensible! They must know we're here. Been waiting fifteen minutes now, begad! Getting beyond a joke—deuced exasperating, Perry, y' know. Dammit, man, why can't you say something, do something, instead of sitting there so devilish calm and serene, staring before you like an infernal sphinx?"
At the end of twenty minutes Anthony could wait no more and bidding me follow, jerked open the door and strode out. But I sat there staring before me at an empty fireplace and still all my thought was of the chaise with the red wheels.