After a time she went slowly upstairs and into her room. When her maid came in she found her before the mirror of her dressing-table, staring at her reflection with hard, appraising eyes.
Leslie's partner, wandering into the hotel at six o'clock, found from the disordered condition of the room that Leslie had been back, had apparently bathed, shaved and made a careful toilet, and gone out again. Joe found himself unexpectedly at a loose end. Filled with suppressed indignation he commenced to dress, getting out a shirt, hunting his evening studs, and lining up what he meant to say to Leslie over his defection.
Then, at a quarter to seven, Leslie came in, top-hatted and morning-coated, with a yellowing gardenia in his buttonhole and his shoes covered with dust.
“Hello, Les,” Joe said, glancing up from a laborious struggle with a stud. “Been to a wedding?”
“Why?”
“You look like it.”
“I made a call, and since then I've been walking.”
“Some walk, I'd say,” Joe observed, looking at him shrewdly. “What's wrong, Les? Fair one turn you down?”
“Go to hell,” Leslie said irritably.
He flung off his coat and jerked at his tie. Then, with it hanging loose, he turned to Joe.