The hall-door opened and Arlington entered, followed by a lean man with worried eyes who proved to be the doctor.
XXXIX
Shortly before seven o'clock, that same morning, a limousine car pulled up quietly just short of the corner of Madison Avenue, and its occupant, with a word on alighting to his driver, addressed himself briskly to the door of the ground-floor flat.
He was a handsome, well dressed, well-set-up and well-nourished animal of something more than middle-age: a fact which the pitilessly clear light of early morning betrayed, discovering lines and hollows in his clean-shaven countenance which would ordinarily have escaped notice.
But he had passed that time of life when he could suffer a sleepless night of anxiety without visibly paying for it.
His intention to announce himself by ringing the bell was promptly anticipated, the door opening before his finger could touch the button. He checked momentarily in obvious surprise, then jauntily lifted his hat as he stepped hurriedly inside.
"Why, my dear!" he addressed the woman who held the door—"up so early!"
"I haven't been to bed, of course, Mr. Arlington," Joan informed him.
"Well," he observed, not without envy, "you don't look it."