I held my breath. The colour must have left my cheeks, I know.
My well-beloved had at that moment opened her handbag and taken out her wisp of lace handkerchief.
My nostrils were instantly filled with that same sweet, subtle perfume which I so vividly recollected, the identical perfume of the woman concealed in that dark passage-way!
Her bangles, two thin gold ones, jingled as she moved—that same sound which had come up to me from the blackness. I sat like a statue, staring at her amazed, aghast, like a man in a dream.
CHAPTER III.
DESCRIBES THE TRYSTING-PLACE.
I drove Phrida back to Cromwell Road in a taxi.
As I sat beside her, that sweet irritating perfume filled my senses, almost intoxicating me. For some time I remained silent; then, unable to longer restrain my curiosity, I exclaimed with a calm, irresponsible air, though with great difficulty of self-restraint:
"What awfully nice perfume you have, dearest! Surely it's new, isn't it? I never remember smelling it before!"