"Good Lord, why didn't he die?" murmured Dr. Macclesfield, with feeling.
It was then that Eva Astry came through the conservatory with Belhaven and they appeared quietly at the threshold of the drawing-room. Eva, who was really lovely, small, dimpled, and blond, was gowned in black lace, and she had broken off a spray of scarlet passion flowers, which she held trailing against her black draperies. The whiteness of her brow and neck was almost dazzling, and her eyes were deeply violet with a caressing expression that won many hearts. This expression was the very acme of achievement; art, not emotion, had crystallized it, until people always found in it precisely what they were looking for, which is the secret of much personal success.
She walked across the room and put one arm around Rachel's neck, for she was fond of contrasting her intensely blond beauty with Rachel's ivory tints and shadowy brown hair.
"Where's Johnstone?" she asked carelessly, interrupting the game without a twinge of conscience.
"I took his hand," Rachel replied quietly; "he went into the conservatory."
She was conscious that the soft arm on her shoulder stirred a little as she spoke, but her sister's laugh came readily.
"We thought it was the parrot, Jim."
Belhaven nodded, watching Macclesfield play, and Rachel noticed how worn the man looked. In the last month he had aged perceptibly; he had seemed peculiarly boyish, but there was nothing boyish now in the pale cheek and haggard eyes. Rachel frowned; why did Eva play with men as a cat plays with mice? She had apparently no deep feeling; she could skim safely on the surface and even dip into dangerous shallows without so much as moistening her delicate finger-tips, yet she could produce a commotion in the pool quite out of proportion with her endeavors.
Rachel rose. "Won't you take my hand?" she said to Belhaven, "I'm tired."
Dr. Macclesfield gave her a keen professional glance.