“By Jove!” he said, “you’re very exotic this morning, Tressa. I never before saw that negligee effect.”
The girl laughed, glanced at her ring, lifted a frail silken fold and examined the amazing embroidery.
“I wore it at the Lake of the Ghosts,” she said.
The name of that place always chilled him. He had begun to hate it, perhaps because of all that he did not know about it—about his wife’s strange girlhood—about Yian and the devil’s Temple there—and about Sanang.
He said coldly but politely that the robe was unusual and the jade very wonderful.
The alteration in his voice and expression did not escape her. It meant merely masculine jealousy, but Tressa never dreamed he cared in that way.
Breakfast was brought, served; and presently these two young people were busy with their melons, coffee, and toast in the sunny room high above the softened racket of traffic echoing through avenue and street below.
“Recklow telephoned me this morning,” he remarked.
She looked up, her face serious.
“Recklow says that Yezidee mischief is taking visible shape. The Socialist Party is going to be split into bits and a new party, impudently and publicly announcing itself as the Communist Party of America, is being organised. Did you ever hear of anything as shameless—as outrageous—in this Republic?”