"How very charming your wife is—still!"
The speaker, her recent character of patient now merged in that of visitor, plucked down her veil of violet gauze with a gesture that betrayed her wrath. But her voice was carefully honeyed to match her smile—as she continued:
"You have been married quite an age, haven't you?"
The anniversary of her own second honeymoon was due next week. She went on answering her own query:
"Nearly fourteen years, I think?"
Saxham answered, not glancing at the silver table-almanac but at the threefold photograph frame:
"To be precise, just fourteen years and six weeks. We were married on the 6th of June, 1900."
"You have a good memory—for some things!"
The undisguised resentment in her tone pulled Saxham's head round. He surveyed her with genuine surprise. She bit her lips and tossed her head, waggling her tall feather, jingling her strings of turquoise and amber, coral and onyx, kunzite and olivine, big blocks of which semi-precious stones were being worn just then, strung on the thinnest of gold chains. Each movement evoked a whiff of perfume from the scanty folds of her bizarre attire. Her frankly double chin quivered, and her redundant bosom, already liberally displayed through its transparent covering of embroidered chiffon, threatened to burst its confining bands of baby-ribbon, as the Doctor said:
"Is it not natural that I should have a particularly clear recollection of the greatest day of all my life—save one?"