Obedient to her little sign, he handed his guest her furs, watching her with amused blue eyes as she powdered her face in the glass.
"Not ever, that, mon cher Pierrot"—she flashed him a mocking glance, hard and brilliant, holding a hint of the resentment in her heart. Then she rose to her feet with a supple movement, gathering her furs about her.
"He loved her," she volunteered—"as far as—jusqu'aux bouts des ongles!"
CHAPTER IX
Ebenezer Cadell was one of those men—daily becoming more rare—who, after a life of strenuous work, can face, at breakfast, a mutton chop. In this nervous age the fact in itself stands for an attribute of success. For next to money a good digestion will thrust an ambitious man far.
He did not even take his chop in obedience to his doctor's wishes, but out of a healthy appetite for that peculiar delicacy. He liked it as a second course, after eggs or fish or bacon, rather underdone and large, remembering lean years of porridge.
Breakfast over, he filled his pipe before the fire, where his boots were warming, and steeped his soul in the Liberal papers with the air of governing the Empire.
Mrs. Cadell, naturally, took in the Morning Post to keep in touch with that social world where names mean more than personal effort.
Cydonia was given the Daily Mirror, generally left unread by her and devoured in the Servants' Hall. Once a week Punch arrived and an unwieldy Ladies' journal, while into the depths of the smoking-room was smuggled a certain apricot paper.