h the woman and won't do a
single extra thing; and all my marketing for to-day and to-morrow
because to-morrow's Memorial Day and they close at noon; and stop at the
real estate agent's on Fifty-third to see them about the wall paper
before I came down. I didn't even have time to swallow a cup of tea. And
yet I was here at two. You haven't a thing to do. Not a blessed thing,
living at a hotel. It does seem to me ..."

So then here it was 2.07, and Hannah Winter, rather panicky, was rushing
along Peacock Alley, dodging loungers, and bell-boys, and travelling
salesmen and visiting provincials and the inevitable red-faced delegates
with satin badges. In her hurry and nervous apprehension she looked, as
she scuttled down the narrow passage, very much like the Rabbit who was
late for the Duchess's dinner. Her rubber-heeled oxfords were pounding
down hard on the white marble pavement. Suddenly she saw coming swiftly
toward her a woman who seemed strangely familiar--a well-dressed woman,
harassed looking, a tense frown between her eyes, and her eyes staring
so that they protruded a little, as one who runs ahead of herself in her
haste. Hannah had just time to note, in a flash, that the woman's smart
hat was slightly askew and that, though she walked very fast, her trim
ankles showed the inflexibility of age, when she saw that the woman was
not going to get out of her way. Hannah Winter swerved quickly to avoid
a collision. So did the other woman. Next instant Hannah Winter brought
up with a crash against her own image in that long and tricky mirror
which forms a broad full-length panel set in the marble wall at the
north end of Peacock Alley. Passersby and the loungers on near-by red
plush seats came running, but she was unhurt except for a forehead bump
that remained black-and-blue for two weeks or more. The bump did not
bother her, nor did the slightly amused concern of those who had come to
her assistance. She stood there, her hat still askew, staring at this
woman--this woman with her stiff ankles, her slightly protruding eyes,
her nervous frown, her hat a little sideways--this stranger--this
murderess who had just slain, ruthlessly and forever, a sallow, lively,
high-spirited girl of twenty in a wine-coloured silk wedding gown.

Don't think that Hannah Winter, at sixty, had tried to ape sixteen. She
was not one of those grisly sexagenarians who think that, by wearing
pink, they can combat the ochre of age. Not at all. In