"Be advised," she said—"avoid malaria. I shall see you before I go to-morrow? Yes—an afternoon train, I think. Good-night, we meet at breakfast as usual."
She stepped in at the window, gathered up certain small properties—a gold scent-bottle, one or two books, a blotting-case, as with a view to final packing and departure. Just as she reached the door she heard Richard say curtly:—
"Send the carriage round. I shall not want it to-night."
But even so Helen did not turn back. On the contrary, she ran, light of foot as the little dancer, of long ago, with blush-roses in her hat, through all the suite of rooms to her own sea-blue, sea-green bedchamber, and there, sitting down before the toilet-table, greeted her own radiant image in the glass. Her lips were very red. Her eyes shone like pale stars on a windy night.
"Quick, quick, undress me, Zélie! Put me to bed. I am simply expiring of fatigue," she said.
CHAPTER IX
CONCERNING THAT DAUGHTER OF CUPID AND PSYCHE WHOM MEN CALL VOLUPTAS
The furniture, though otherwise of the customary proportions, had all been dwarfed. This had been achieved in some cases by ingenious design in its construction, in others by the simple process of cutting down, thus reducing table and chair, couch and bureau, in itself of whatever grace of style, dignity of age, or fineness of workmanship, to an equality of uncomely degradation in respect of height. The resultant effect was of false perspective. Nor was this unpleasing effect lessened by the proportions of the room itself. In common with all those of the entresol, it was noticeably low in relation to its length and width, while the stunted vaultings of its darkly-frescoed ceiling produced an impression of heaviness rather than of space. Bookcases, dwarfed as were all the other furnishings, lined the walls to within about two feet of the spring of the said vaulting. Made of red cedar and unpolished, the cornices and uprights of them were carved with arabesques in high relief. An antique, Persian carpet, sombre in colouring and of great value, covered the greater portion of the pale pink and gray mosaic pavement of the floor. Thick, rusty-red, Genoa-velvet curtains were drawn over each low, square window. A fire of logs burned on the open hearth. And this notwithstanding the unaccustomed warmth of the outside air, did but temper the chill atmosphere of the room and serve to draw a faint aroma from the carven cedar wood.
It was here, to his library,—carried down-stairs by his men-servants as a helpless baby-child might be,—that Richard Calmady had come when Helen de Vallorbes departed so blithely to her bedchamber. And it was here he remained, though nearly two hours had elapsed since then, finding sleep impossible.