confronted it. At the half-hour she
arranged herself on the sofa, with a book, in an attitude of
carelessness as to the event. As a material appearance the attitude was
perfect.

She rose as the servant announced "Mr. Wilfrid Marston." She stood as
she had risen, waiting for her visitor to advance. Her eyes were fixed
on her book which she laid down, deliberately marking the page, and yet
she was aware of his little pause at the door as it closed behind him,
and of his little smile that took her in. She had no need to look at
him.

He was a man of middle size, who held himself so well that he appeared
taller and slenderer than he was. You saw that he had been fair and
florid and slender enough in his youth, and that all his good points had
worn somewhat to hardness. His face was hard and of a fast-hardening,
reddish-sallow colour, showing a light network of veins about the
cheekbones. Hard, wiry wrinkles were about the outer corners of his
eyes. He kept his small reddish-gold moustache close clipped, so that it
made his mouth look extraordinarily straight and hard. People who didn't
know him were apt to mistake him for a soldier. (He was in the War
Office, rather high up.) He had several manners, his official manner to
persons calling at the War Office; his social manner, inimitably devout
to women whom he respected; and his natural manner, known only in its
perfection to women whom he did not respect. And under both of these
he conveyed a curious and disagreeable impression of stern sensuality,
as if the animal in him had worn to hardness, too.

"Kitty, my dear girl!" His voice, unlike the rest of him, could be thick
and soft and fluid. He put his arm round her, and she offered him her
mouth, curled forward, obedient but unsmiling. Her hand, surrendered to
his, lay limp in the hard clasp of it. He raised it as if weighing the
powerless, subservient thing.

"Kitty," he said, "you're still getting thin. My last orders were, if
you remember, that you were to put on another stone before I saw you
again."

He bared her wrist, pressing it slightly, to show how its round curves
were sunken.

"Do you call that putting on another stone?"

She drew back her arm.

"What have you been doing to yourself?" he said.

"Nothing. There hasn't been anything to do. It's not very amusing
being left all by yourself for weeks and weeks, you know."

"All by yourself?"

"Yes. Bunny doesn't count."

"No, she certainly doesn't.