"And you?" The movement of enameled lips was imperceptible.
"I'll be along later, of course, as soon as I've dressed. You can send the car back for me. Why not?"
"Why not?"
But Lontaine took this inscrutable echo for assent, and with a grunt of relief disappeared into his dressing-room. A series of clicks sounded as he turned on lights. Still the woman seated before the mirror didn't move. But her interest centered no longer upon what she saw; though she did not avert her eyes from the glowing figure painted in those still, shallow depths, all her attention now was concentrated in another faculty: she was listening.
She heard Lontaine moving about, chair-legs scrape a hardwood floor, the snap of the bathroom light. A pause followed, then a clashing noise of bottles and toilet articles impatiently shifted upon their glass shelf. After that, Lontaine's returning footsteps. Then he reappeared in the doorway.
"Hello! Thought you were going on ahead."
"Presently," Fanny replied in brittle accents. "Plenty of time. Something the matter?"
"Can't find my razors."
"No." At last the woman broke her pose: her counterfeit in the glass nodded gravely to the man behind her. "No," she iterated—and he had the flying thought that her voice had never vibrated so sweetly—"and you won't find them, either, Harry. They're in a safe place, it's no good your hunting for them."
"What!" Lontaine advanced one single, sudden stride. "What's that for?"